DANIEL    WEBSTER 
The  Statue  by  Ball  at  Dartmouth  College 


•  The  True  y&;y, 
Daniel   Webster^ 

By      ; 
pydney  George  Fisher,  Litt.  D.,  LL.D. 

Author  of 

*'  The  True  Benjamin  Franklin,"  "  The  Struggle  for  American  Independence," 

'*  Men,    Women    and    Manners    in    Colonial    Times," 

"  The  Making  of  Pennsylvania,"  etc. 


My  manner  of  political  life  is  known  to  you  all.     *  *  *  I  leave  it  to  my  country 

and  to  the  world,  whether  it  will  or  will  not  stand  the  test  of 

time  and  truth." — Speech  of  July  9, 1852. 


WITH  TWENTY-FIVE  ILLUSTRATIONS 


Philadelphia  &  London 

J.  B.  Lippincott  Company 
1911 


COPYRIGHT,    igil,   BY    J.   B.   LIPPINCOTT    COMPANY 


PUBLISHED    NOVEMBER,    19!! 


PRINTED   BY  J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT   COMPANY 

AT  THE   WASHINGTON   SQUARE   PRESS 

PHILADELPHIA,  U.S.A. 


Preface 

THE  material  for  a  life  of  Webster  is  largely  con 
tained  in  his  speeches  and  letters.  For  nearly  two 
generations  after  his  death  the  principal  collection  of 
these  was  an  edition  of  his  speeches  in  six  volumes, 
published  in  1851,  edited  by  his  lifelong  friend,  fellow- 
orator  and  pupil,  Edward  Everett,  and  two  volumes 
of  his  letters  edited  by  his  son  Fletcher  Webster.  These 
contained  by  no  means  all  his  writings,  most  of  which 
in  their  original  manuscript  form  have  been  concentrated 
in  the  New  Hampshire  Historical  Society,  at  Concord, 
which  is  the  richest  collection  of  them,  and  the  Sanborn 
collection  in  New  York.  The  Greenough  collection  at 
Washington  consists  principally  of  letters  from  Web 
ster's  correspondents.  There  are,  of  course,  numerous 
letters  still  owned  by  individuals,  and,  unfortunately, 
large  numbers  of  probably  valuable  letters,  like  those 
to  his  daughter  Julia  and  to  his  English  correspondents, 
have  been  lost  or  destroyed. 

In  1902  Mr.  C.  H.  Van  Tyne  edited  a  large  volume 
of  most  interesting  letters  from  these  various  sources 
arranged  so  as  to  reveal  Webster  as  the  politician, 
statesman,  farmer,  sportsman,  and  in  other  phases  of  his 
life.  In  the  following  year  the  same  publishers  who 
had  brought  out  the  six-volume  edition  of  his  speeches 
in  1851  issued  the  National  Edition  of  all  his  writings, 
both  letters  and  speeches,  in  eighteen  volumes.  This 
edition,  an  admirable  piece  of  book  making,  contains  even 
his  boyish  compositions;  and  while  not  including  lit 
erally  everything,  has  thrown  an  immense  additional 
light  upon  his  life  and  opinions.  The  mass  of  his 
writings  now  accessible  in  these  editions,  Van  Tyne's 
and  the  National,  give  one  an  impression  of  intellectual 


PREFACE 

power  which,  I  think,  would  be  hard  to  match  any 
where  in  the  history  of  law  and  politics.  Many  of 
the  ^  speeches  and  addresses  omitted  from  the  early 
edition  of  1851  because  they  seemed'  offhand  or  in  un 
dress  uniform,  are  forjhat  reason  the  more  valuable 
and  show  phases  of  his  reasoning  power  and  mastery 
of  language  which  are  not  so  apparent  in  more  formal 
productions. 

The  "  Private  Life  of  Daniel  Webster,"  written  by 
Mr.  Lanman,  who  was  his  private  secretary  towards 
the  close  of  his  life,  Marsh's  "  Reminiscences,"  Lyman's 
"  Memorials,"  Harvey's  "  Reminiscences,"  and  Plumer's 
"  Reminiscences  "*  are  the  principal  sources  of  our  knowl 
edge  of  Webster's  personality,  outside  of  his  letters. 
There  is  also  information  on  this  point  in  the  volume 
of  addresses  delivered  at  the  Webster  Centennial  at 
Dartmouth  in  1901.  The  portraiture  has  been  de 
scribed  by  Mr.  Charles  Henry  Hart  in  his  usual  thorough 
manner  in  McClure's  Magazine  for  May,  1897.  There 
were  an  immense  number  of  portraits,  daguerreotypes, 
engravings  and  prints  of  Webster.  Harding  is  said  to 
have  painted  him  from  life  nine  times. 

The  "  Life  of  Webster,"  in  two  large  volumes  of  six 
hundred  pages  each,  by  his  literary  executor,  Mr.  George 
Ticknor  Curtis,  contains  also  personal,  reminiscences 
because  Mr.  Curtis  was  one  of  his  intimate  friends. 
But  these  two  large  volumes  are  more  particularly, 
as  they  were  intended  to  be,  a  store  house  of  letters  and 
documents,  as  well  as  of  facts  and  dates;  in  short,  an 
official  source  of  information. 

From  Webster's  relentless  enemies,  the  Abolitionists 
and  Free  Soilers,  much  information  of  a  certain  kind 
is  to  be  obtained ;  and  though  my  respect  for  the  meth 
ods  and  arguments  of  these  people  is  not  of  the  highest, 
I  have  admitted  them  as  contemporaries  and  witnesses, 

1  Plumer's  "  Reminiscences "  are,  printed  in  the  National 
Edition  of  Webster's  "Works,"  vol.  xvii,  p.  546. 

vi 


PREFACE 

and  the  reader  may  judge   for  himself  of  the  value 
of  their  testimony. 

The  recent  essay,  "  Daniel  Webster — a  Vindication," 
by  Mr.  W.  C.  Wilkinson,  contains  original  evidence  of 
the  greatest  value  collected  from  the  contemporaries, 
both  friends  and  enemies,  of  Webster;  and  it  is  im 
portant  in  connection  with  those  extraordinary  tales 
of  Webster's  supposed  excessive  drunkenness  and  im 
morality,  defects  which  appear  to  have  increased  since 
his  death,  to  such  a  degree  that  the  Abolitionists  who 
started  the  scandals  would  now,  if  alive,  hardly  be 
able  to  recognize  their  own  work. 

The  Free  Soilers  had  another  chance  at  their  old 
enemy  in  1882,  the  hundredth  anniversary  of  his  birth, 
and  one  or  more  of  the  Boston  newspapers  gave  them 
space  to  declaim.  Senator  Lodge's  "  Life  of  Webster," 
published  in  1883,  seems  to  have  been  written  under 
the  influence  of  this  outburst;  and  he  says  that  the 
Abolitionist  view  of  Webster  is  the  one  that  has  been 
finally  adopted  by  history,  and  dissent  from  it  will  be 
unavailing. 

The  Senator's  book  is,  of  course,  ably  written  and 
argued,  and  as  its  author  lived  in  Boston  in  the  midst 
of  people  who  had  known  Webster  and  all  his  con 
troversies,  the  book  is  in  some  degree  a  source  of 
original  material.  It  is  certainly  typical  of  the  Aboli 
tionist  and  Free  Soil  point  of  view.  In  that  respect 
I  think  it  goes  a  little  too  far;  and  as  it  has  seriously 
attacked  the  credibility  of  Mr.  Peter  Harvey's  "  Rem 
iniscences,"  I  shall  have  to  say  something  in  defence 
of  that  gentleman,  to  whose  care  we  owe  the  preser 
vation  of  such  a  large  number  of  the  Webster  papers 
now  collected  in  the  New  Hampshire  Historical  Society. 
Mr.  Lodge  rules  out  Harvey  as  a  witness,  and 
says  "  a  more  untrustworthy  book  it  would  be  impossible 
to  imagine.  There  is  not  a  statement  in  it  which  can 
be  safely  accepted,  unless  supported  by  other  evidence." 
He  gives  only  two  reasons.  One,  a  story  Harvey 


vn 


PREFACE 

tells  that  when  Webster  was  a  comparatively  young 
man,  William  Pinkney,  then  the  leader  of  the  Ameri 
can  Bar,  persistently  snubbed  him,  and  attempted  to 
put  him  in  a  contemptible  position  before  the  Supreme 
Court  at  Washington.  Webster  finally  invited  him  into 
one  of  the  Grand  Jury  rooms,  locked  the  door,  told 
him  he  must  apologize  then  and  also  in  the  presence 
of  the  Supreme  Court  next  day,  or  take  the  con 
sequence  ;  and  Pinkney  apologized  then  and  the  next 
day.  This  story,  Mr.  Lodge  says,  "  is  either  wholly 
fictitious  or  so  grossly  exaggerated  as  to  be  practically 
false,"  and  puts  Webster  "  in  the  light  of  a  common 
and  odious  bully."  The  other  reason  is,  that  Harvey 
"  makes  Webster  say  that  he  never  received  a  challenge 
from  Randolph,  whereas  in  Webster's  own  letter  pub 
lished  by  Mr.  Curtis,  there  is  express  reference  to  a 
note  of  challenge  received  from  Randolph." 

In  regard  to  the  challenge  Harvey  was  apparently 
mistaken,  but  possibly  not  in  the  way  that  Mr.  Lodge 
supposes;  and  the  history  of  the  matter  is  somewhat 
curious.  In  the  controversy  with  Randolph  in  1816  we 
have,  as  Mr.  Lodge  says,  a  letter  from  Webster,  refer 
ring  to  a  challenge  received  from  Randolph  and  indeed 
declining  the  challenge.  But  there  was  afterwards,  in 
1824  and  1825,  another  controversy,  in  which  Randolph 
had  written  a  letter  in  a  Richmond  newspaper  attacking 
the  conduct  of  a  committee  of  Congress  appointed  to 
investigate  some  conduct  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treas 
ury.  Webster  was  a  member  of  this  Committee  and 
with  his  fellow-members  was  quite  indignant  at  the 
attack,  and,  according  to  the  account  Randolph  received, 
branded  its  statements  as  a  lie.  Afterwards  in  Con 
gress,  Webster  denied  the  truth  of  Randolph's  state 
ments  in  strong  but  parliamentary  language. 

It  is  probably  this  controversy  to  which  Harvey 
refers,  because  he  mentions  Colonel  Benton  as  sent  to 
Webster  by  Randolph. 


PREFACE 

"One  day  I  had  been  asking  him  some  questions  about  his 
controversy  with  John  Randolph.  It  was  said,  I  told  him,  that 
John  Randolph  had  challenged  him.  He  replied  that  that  was 
not  true. 

" '  But,'  said  he,  '  he  sent  Colonel  Benton  to  me  to  know 
if  I  meant  such  and  such  things;  and  I  told  him  that  I  did 
not  choose  to  be  called  to  account  for  anything  I  had  said, 
and  that  I  meant  just  what  I  had  said.  It  was  evident  that 
there  was  a  purpose  to  have  a  row  with  me.'  "  (Harvey, 
"Reminiscences,"  p.  119.) 

The  controversy  was  kept  out  of  the  newspapers  by 
an  agreement  to  that  effect  between  Webster  and  Ran 
dolph.  As  time  passed,  however,  scraps  of  it  leaked 
out,  and  this  gossip  no  doubt  had  set  Harvey  inquiring. 
Not  until  1880  were  any  papers  or  letters  on  the  subject 
published,  and  then  some  appeared  in  the  Magazine  of 
American  History  for  January,  1880,  and  afterwards 
in  1903  some  of  the  same  and  other  papers  on  the  sub 
ject  appeared  in  the  National  Edition  of  Webster's 
Works  of  that  year,  taken  from  the  collection  in  the 
New  Hampshire  Historical  Society.2  These  papers  in 
the  National  Edition  were  all  that  at  first  came  to  my 
knowledge  in  regard  to  the  affair ;  and  according  to  these 
Benton  came  to  Webster  with  a  letter  from  Randolph, 
and  Webster  prepared  a  reply  to  this  letter.  Appa 
rently,  however,  as  the  result  of  further  conversation 
with  Benton,  Webster  destroyed  his  reply,  and  in  place 
of  it  gave  Benton  another  letter  and  a  memorandum, 
both  to  the  effect  that  he  was  willing  that  Benton 
"  should  say  to  Mr.  R.  that  he  has  no  recollection  of 
having  said  anything  which  can  possibly  be  considered 
as  affecting  Mr.  R.'s  veracity  beyond  what  he  said  in 
the  H.  of  R.  If  he  has  used  other  expressions,  they 
must  have  been  about  the  same  time ;  he  does  not  now 
recollect  them  and  disclaims  them."  There  was  more 
to  the  same  effect  and  an  agreement  or  understanding 
that  "  no  publication  is  called  for  and  none  is  to  be  in 
any  way  authorized  by  either  of  us." 

a"  Works,"   National   Edition,   vol.   xvi,   p.    102. 
ix 


PREFACE 

Such  is  in  brief  the  light  which  the  publication 
of  the  National  Edition  threw  upon  the  affair.  There  is 
no  mention  of  any  challenge,  unless  a  person  might 
infer  that  the  letter  Webster  received  from  Randolph 
must  have  been  a  challenge.  These  papers  were  appa 
rently  part  of  those  given  by  Harvey,  after  Webster's 
death,  to  the  New  Hampshire  Historical  Society,  and 
if  Harvey  examined  them  before  giving  them  to  the 
Society,  he  would  probably  have  concluded  that  there 
was  no  challenge.  Webster's  literary  executor,  Mr. 
Curtis,  if  he  knew  of  this  controversy,  seems  to  have 
thought  that  there  was  no  challenge,  because  he  de 
scribes  the  difficulty  of  1816  as  "  the  sole  instance  in 
which  a  challenge  was  sent."3 

While  the  present  volume  was  in  press,  however,  Mr. 
Charles  Henry  Hart,  of  Philadelphia,  called  my  atten 
tion  to  some  Webster  letters  he  gave  to  the  Historical 
Society  of  Massachusetts  in  October,  1879,  and  fur 
nished  me  with  copies  of  them.  The  very  first  one  is  a 
letter  of  challenge  from  Randolph,  dated  February  20, 
1825,  in  these  words: 

Sir:  I  learn  from  unquestionable  authority,  that  during  my 
late  absence  from  the  United  States,  you  have  indulged  your 
self  in  liberties  with  my  name  (aspersing  my  veracity)  which 
no  gentleman  can  take,  who  does  not  hold  himself  personally 
responsible  for  such  insult. 

My  friend,  Col.  Benton  (the  bearer  of  this  note)  will 
arrange  the  terms  of  the  meeting  to  which  you  are  hereby 
invited. 

I  am,  Sir,  your  obed.  Servt, 

JOHN  RANDOLPH  OF  ROANOKE. 
To  DANIEL  WEBSTER,  ESQ., 

of  Massachusetts. 

This  letter  in  Randolph's  handwriting  was  bought 
with  the  others  by  Mr.  Hart  at  a  public  sale;  and 
the  collection  as  he  bought  it  was  headed  by  a  letter 
of  April  i,  1854,  from  Commodore  William  Inman,  say- 

3  Curtis,  "  Life  of  Webster,"  vol.  i,  p.  154. 
x 


PREFACE 

ing  that  the  papers  were  given  to  him  by  Randolph  on 
"  our  voyage  to  Russia  in  1830."  The  other  papers 
accompanying  the  letter  are  some  of  them  the  same,  with 
slight  verbal  variations,  as  those  published  in  the  Na 
tional  Edition  in  1903,  and  the  rest  add  nothing  of  any 
great  importance.  It  was  these  Hart  papers  that  were 
published  in  the  American  Magazine  of  History  for 
January,  1880.  But  Commodore  Inman  did  not  address 
his  letter  or  give  the  papers  to  Mr.  Hart,  as  stated  in 
the  magazine.  The  Commodore's  letter  is  believed  to 
have  been  addressed  to  Mr.  Charles  D.  Gardette,  of 
Philadelphia. 

Apparently,  then,  the  letter  from  Randolph,  which  the 
papers  in  the  National  Edition  mention  Webster  as  hav 
ing  returned  to  Benton  without  keeping  a  copy  and  the 
answer  to  which  he  destroyed,  was  a  challenge.  The 
proof  is  not  absolute  demonstration,  but  is  certainly 
strong.  What  happened  seems  to  have  been  that  Benton 
arranged  an  amicable  adjustment  by  which  Webster  said 
in  writing  that  he  disclaimed  everything  except  what  he 
had  said  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  that  he 
merely  denied  Randolph's  accuracy  of  statement  without 
going  farther.  Then  it  was  agreed  by  Benton  and  Web 
ster  that  the  challenge  should  be  wiped  out  and  forgotten. 
Webster  handed  it  to  Benton,  kept  no  copy,  destroyed 
(burnt  Benton  says  in  the  Hart  papers)  the  letter  he 
had  prepared  in  answer  to  it,  and  agreed  that  he.  and 
Randolph  should  keep  the  whole  thing  out  of  the  news 
papers.  The  challenge  was  therefore  in  effect  with 
drawn  by  Randolph  through  Benton,  his  second.  Ben- 
ton  no  doubt  returned  the  original  challenge  letter  to 
Randolph,  who  five  years  afterwards  in  crossing  the 
ocean  with  Commodore  Inman  could  not  refrain  from 
putting  it  in  the  way  of  ultimate  publication  by  giving 
a  copy  of  it  in  his  own  hand  writing  to  the  Commodore, 
together  with  other  papers ;  and  also  no  doubt  entertain 
ing  him  with  a  spicy  account  of  the  affair  from  the 
Randolph  point  of  view. 

xi 


PREFACE 

When  Webster  therefore  was  asked  by  Harvey  if 
there  had  been  any  challenge,  he  answered  as  he  would 
have  answered  a  newspaper  reporter,  or  any  news  gath 
erer  of  the  time,  by  saying  no,  there  was  none;  the 
same  sort  of  answer  Sir  Walter  Scott  is  said  to  have 
given  when  asked  if  he  was  the  author  of  the  Waverley 
novels ;  and  the  same  answer  most  people  consider  them 
selves  entitled  to  give  when  the  gossips  inquire  about 
what  is  none  of  their  business.  Webster,  Benton,  and 
Randolph  had  agreed  that  the  challenge  should  be 
wiped  out,  withdrawn,  forgotten,  nothing  about  it  pub 
lished.  Benton  and  Webster  kept  their  part  of  the 
agreement  to  the  letter.  Randolph,  it  seems,  was  a 
trifle  careless  in  keeping  his,  although  he  endorsed  on 
the  papers  given  to  Inman,  an  injunction  not  to  let  them 
be  published.  It  was  a  poor  way  to  keep  a  secret.  But 
in  the  light  of  all  these  circumstances,  can  Harvey  be 
blamed  for  any  incorrectness  in  the  account  of  the  affair 
in  his  "  Reminiscences  "  of  Webster? 

We  would,  of  course,  like  to  know  the  contents  of 
that  letter  of  Webster's  in  reply  to  the  challenge.  But 
even  Benton  did  not  know  the  contents  of  it;  for  he 
says  in  the  Hart  papers  that  Webster  burnt  it,  without 
showing  it  to  him  or  telling  him  anything  it  contained. 
Probably  it  was  the  same  reply  he  gave  to  Randolph's 
challenge  in  1816,  a  flat  refusal,  a  denial  of  Randolph's 
right  to  call  him  to  account  in  that  way  and  a  warning 
to  him  not  to  attempt  any  street  ruffianism. 

But  as  to  Harvey  and  his  mistake,  if  you  rule  out 
entirely  every  witness  who  makes  a  single  mistake,  you 
will  cut  yourself  down  to  very  few.  Lanman,  Webster's 
private  secretary,  will  have  to  go,  because  he  tells  the 
anecdote  of  Webster  on  his  graduation  day,  tearing  up 
his  diploma  on  the  campus  at  Dartmouth,  saying,  "  My 
industry  may  make  a  man  of  me,  but  this  parchment 
never  will,"  and  then  mounting  his  horse  and  riding 
home  in  lofty  magnificence.  Where  this  tale  originated, 
nobody  seems  to  know.  It  has  been  positively  denied 

xii 


PREFACE 

by  Webster's  associates  and  the  people  who  knew  him 
best  at  that  time ;  and  so  far  as  such  things  are  capable 
of  proof  or  disproof,  it  has  been  disproved. 

Harvey  may  have  exaggerated  the  Pinkney  anecdote. 
Mr.  Lodge  assumes  that  he  did.  Someone  else  may 
assume  that  he  did  not.  At  this  late  day  who  can  tell  ? 

Why  should  we  reject  everything  he  says?  Must 
we  reject  that  interesting  story  of  Monica,  the  slave 
whose  freedom  Webster  purchased?  Is  that  a  fabri 
cation  and  a  fake  ?  Or  that  story  that  when  Webster  was 
asked  if  he  had  ever  seen  the  junction  of  the  Mississippi 
and  the  Missouri,  he  replied,  "Yes;  but  there  is  no 
junction.  The  Missouri  seizes  the  Mississippi  and  car 
ries  her  captive  to  New  Orleans  "  ?  And  so  of  a  score 
of  other  apparently  valuable  pieces  of  information.  Is 
it  not  better  to  admit  Mr.  Peter  Harvey  as  a  witness, 
an  eye  witness,  and  let  readers  judge  for  themselves, 
from  all  the  circumstances,  how  much  of  him  they  will 
believe  ? 

He  was,  I  find,  a  merchant  and  man  of  business  in 
Boston,  president  of  a  bank,  treasurer  of  the  Rutland 
Railroad,  a  member  of  the  Governor's  Council,  served 
in  both  branches  of  the  Legislature,  interested  in  politics, 
a  devoted  Whig,  a  great  admirer  and  friend  for  many 
years  of  Webster, — a  Boswell,  if  you  like, — made  politi 
cal  arrangements  for  Webster,  stayed  at  his  house  in 
Washington  and  at  Marshfield,  was  given  by  Webster's 
son,  Fletcher,  a  large  number  of  his  father's  letters  and 
papers,  added  to  this  collection  by  his  own  efforts  and 
gave  it  all  to  the  New  Hampshire  Historical  Society. 
He  was  in  fact,  from  general  ability  and  knowledge  of 
the  world,  more  competent  to  write  intimately  about 
Webster  than  any  of  the  other  reminiscence  writers, 
except,  perhaps,  Plumer.  But  when  I  began  my  investi 
gations,  I  found  a  most  extraordinary  hostility  towards 
him  among  certain  excellent  people  in  Boston.  "  Oh, 
yes ;  he  was  a  nice  old  gentleman,  always  defending  the 
Websters ;  and  heaven  knows  they  needed  it ;  but  don't 


Xlll 


PREFACE 

pay  attention  to  anything  he  says ;  he  is  very  unreliable." 
Soon,  however,  I  had  the  key.  All  these  excellent 
people  were  of  the  old  Abolitionist  and  Free  Soil  parties, 
or  the  sons  or  admirers  of  the  old  Free  Soilers.  Great 
and  noble  people  they  were  in  their  day.  I  do  not  ques 
tion  that.  But  they  had  certain  limitations.  They,  of 
course,  could  not  endure  Mr.  Harv^Decau^"  he  was 
an  ardent  Whig,  and  in  his  "  Reminiscences  "  there  is 
more  or  less  argument  in  support  of  Webster's  seventh  of 
March  speech  on  the  Compromise  of  1850.  That,  of 
course,  has  damned  him  forever ;  he  will  never  be  relia 
ble  in  Boston ;  never  anything  but  a  nice,  weak-minded 
old  gentleman,  who  was  always  defending  the  Websters. 
That  key  once  obtained  unlocks  a  great  deal  of  Web 
ster  material.  If  you  picjt  ^p  a  diary  or  letter  or  any 
thing  about  Webster  and  know  the  politics  of  the  writer, 
whether  Free  Soil  or  Whig,  you  can  almost  write  out 
beforehand  what  he  will  say.  That  old  controversy  was 
a  terrible  one  in  its  day ;  and  necessarily  so ;  for  it  was 
part  of  the  Civil  War.  Webster  was  caught  in  it,  and 
if  he  had  succumbed  unresisting  to  the  current  he  might 
have  been  swept  on  without  a  sound  and  landed  as  a 
respectable  corpse.  But  because  he  rose,  lion-like,  and 
fought  and  struggled  with  the  rapids  and  the  whirlpool, 
they  tore  and  mangled  him  until  it  is  an  almost  unrecog 
nizable  body  that  his  biographer  has  to  reanimate  with 
its  original  soul 


Contents 


PAGE 

I.    ORIGIN  AND  EDUCATION 15 

II.    METHODS  AND  CHARACTER  OF  HIS  ELOQUENCE.  .       53 

III.     EARLY    PROFESSIONAL    DAYS    AND    RELATIONS 

WITH  JUDGE  STORY 70 

IV.    WAR  OF  l8l2  AND  THE  HARTFORD  CONVENTION      95 

V.  DARTMOUTH  COLLEGE  CASE — KENNISTON  TRIAL 
— CONSTITUTIONAL  CONVENTION  —  PLYMOUTH 
ORATION 14  r 

VI.  THE  MISSOURI  COMPROMISE — GREEK  INDEPEN 
DENCE — TARIFF  OF  1854 — GIBBONS  vs.  OGDEN  164 

VII.    FIELD   SPORTS  —  DISCOVERY  OF   MARSHFIELD  — 

VISIT  TO  JEFFERSON — Loss  OF  HIS  SON 187 

VIII.  BARGAIN  AND  CORRUPTION — CRIMES  ACT — EN 
GLISH  FRIENDS  —  BUNKER  HILL  ADDRESS  — 
NIAGARA — EULOGY  ON  ADAMS  AND  JEFFERSON  195 

IX.  ELECTION  TO  THE  SENATE — DEATH  OF  HIS  WIFE 
—  TARIFF  OF  1828  —  REMARRIAGE  —  PRESI 
DENT'S  POWER  OF  REMOVAL 219 

X.    THE  GREAT  DEBATE — REPLY  TO  HAYNE 233 

XI.  THE  WHITE  MURDER  TRIAL — JACKSONIAN  POLI 
TICS — BANK  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES — MARSH- 
FIELD  281 

XII.    NULLIFICATION  AND  COMPROMISE 308 

XIII.  THE    REMOVAL   OF   THE    DEPOSITS — A   CHANCE 

FOR  THE  PRESIDENCY 340 

XIV.  ATTEMPTS  TO  RETIRE  —  PANIC  OF    1837  —  SUB- 

TREASURY — VISIT  TO  ENGLAND — HARD  CIDER 
CAMPAIGN  —  SECRETARY  OF  STATE 360 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

XV.    THE  NORTHEAST  BOUNDARY  DISPUTE 393 

XVI.  RETIRES  FROM  THE  CABINET— LIFE  AT  MARSH- 
FIELD — GIRARD  WILL — RELIGION — THE  PRESI 
DENCY —  THE  INGERSOLL  CHARGES  —  PENSION 
AND  DEBTS 411 

XVII.    THE  MEXICAN  WAR  AND  SLAVERY 436 

XVIII.     THE  SEVENTH  OF  MARCH  SPEECH  AND  ITS  CON 
SEQUENCES  459 

XIX.     LAST  DAYS  OF  WEBSTER  AND  THE  WHIGS 495 

INDEX 513 


List   of  Illustrations 

PAGE 

THE  BALL  STATUE  OF  WEBSTER Frontispiece 

From  a  photograph  by  Mr.  H.  H.  H.  Langill  of  the  statue  by 
Thomas  Ball  in  the  possession  of  Dartmouth  College.  Generally 
considered  a  fine  representation  of  Webster's  attitude  and  figure 
in  middle  age.  The  same  sculptor  made  a  statue  of  Webster  in 
bronze  which  is  in  Central  Park,  New  York. 

HOUSE  IN  WHICH  WEBSTER  WAS  BORN 25 

From  the  sketch  by  Lanman,  engraved  in  his  "  Private  Life  of 
Webster."  Lanman  says  that  Webster  approved  the  sketch  as 
correct. 

WEBSTER  TAVERN  AT  THE  ELMS  FARM 29 

From  an  old  photograph  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  F.  N.  Hancock,  of 
Franklin,  New  Hampshire. 

WEBSTER   HOUSE   AT   ELMS   FARM  AND  VIEW  OP   THE 
INTERVAL  LAND 33 

From  photographs  by  Mr.  E.  D.  Currier,  of  Franklin,  New 
Hampshire.  The  building  on  the  left  of  the  house  is  modern. 

MAP  OF  THE  ELMS  FARM 43 

From  a  drawing  made  on  the  spot  by  Mr.  F.  N.  Hancock,  of 
Franklin,  New  Hampshire. 

SILHOUETTE  OF  WEBSTER'S  MOTHER 45 

From  a  photograph  kindly  lent  by  Mr.  Charles  Henry  Hart,  of  the 
original  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Abbot  Lawrence. 

TICKNOR'S  SKETCH  OF  DARTMOUTH  COLLEGE  IN  1803..       51 

From  a  photograph  by  Mr.  H.  H.  H.  Langill,  of  the  original 
sketch  in  the  possession  of  Dartmouth  College. 

HOUSE  IN  WHICH  WEBSTER  LIVED  AT  DARTMOUTH,  NORTH 
MAIN  STREET 7  z 

From  a  photograph  by  H.  H.  H.  Langill  of  the  house  as  it  now 
appears. 

HOUSE  IN  WHICH  WEBSTER  LIVED  AT  DARTMOUTH. 
THE  OLD  WAINWRIGHT  HOUSE  ON  SOUTH  MAIN 
STREET,  NOW  DR.  CROSBY'S 75 

From  a  photograph  by  H.  H.  H.  Langill  of  the  house  as  it  now 
appears. 

B  xvii 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

MINIATURE  OF  WEBSTER  AT  THE  AGE  OF  ABOUT  TWEN 
TY-TWO    TO  TWENTY-SIX 81 

From  a  photograph  of  the  original  miniature  in  the  possession  of 
Mr.  F.  Lincoln  Peirce,  of  Boston.  It  is  a  most  interesting  portrait, 
showing  Webster  at  the  time  of  life  when  he  was  nicknamed 
"  all  eyes." 

MRS.  GRACE   FLETCHER   WEBSTER 85 

From  a  photograph  lent  by  "  McClure's  Magazine"  of  the  original 
portrait  by  Chester  Harding.  "McClure's  Magazine,"  vol.  ix, 
p.  629. 

PORTRAIT  OF  WEBSTER  BY  AN  UNKNOWN  ARTIST 119 

From  a  photograph  kindly  furnished  by  Mr.  Charles  Henry  Hart, 
of  Philadelphia,  of  the  painting  in  the  possession  of  the  Long 
Island  Historical  Society  at  Brooklyn,  New  York.  A  beautiful 
portrait  at  the  time  of  life  when  Webster  was  still  called  "all 
eyes,"  and  seems  intended  to  emphasize  the  spiritual  and  intel 
lectual  side  of  his  nature. 

WEBSTER  ABOUT  1824.    AGED  42 177 

From  a  photograph  of  the  original  painting  by  Gilbert  Stuart  in 
the  possession  of  Mr.  George  Frederick  Williams,  of  Dedham, 
Massachusetts. 

PORTRAIT  OF  WEBSTER  BY  HARDING 201 

From  a  photograph  of  the  original  painting  by  Chester  Harding 
in  the  possession  of  Dr.  Guy  Hinsdale,  of  Hot  Springs,  Va.  The 
date  is  unknown,  but  apparently  it  represents  Webster  as  a  com 
paratively  young  man. 

MRS.  CAROLINE  LE  ROY  WEBSTER 231 

From  a  photograph  lent  by  "  McClure's  Magazine"  of  the  original 
drawing  by  Dubourgal,  "McClure's  Magazine,"  vol.  ix,  p.  630. 

PORTRAIT  OF  WEBSTER  BY   HARDING 261 

From  a  photograph  furnished  by  J.  Carroll  Payne,  Esq.,  of 
Atlanta,  Ga.,  of  the  painting  in  his  possession. 

THE  WEBSTER  HOUSE  AT  MARSHFIELD 303 

From  a  photograph  by  Mr.  L.  B.  Howard,  of  Brant  Rock,  Massa 
chusetts. 

WEBSTER  TRAMPING  OVER  MARSHFIELD 305 

From  a  photograph  lent  by  "  McClure's  Magazine"  of  the  original 
painting  by  Joseph  Ames. 

xviii 


LIST  OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

GENERAL  JACKSON,  WITH  THE  HERMITAGE  IN  THE  BACK 
GROUND 347 

Though  in  the  setting  of  the  Hermitage,  the  picture  shows  the 
General  as  he  used  to  walk  the  streets  of  Washington.  From  a 
photograph  lent  by  "  McClure's  Magazine  "  of  the  original  painting 
by  R.  E.  W.  Earl,  "  McClure's  Magazine,"  vol.  ix,  p.  800. 

MAP  OF  THE  NORTHEAST  BOUNDARY  DISPUTE 401 

WEBSTER  IN  1845.    AGE  63 425 

From  a  photograph  lent  by  "  McClure's  Magazine"  of  the  original 
painting  by  Chester  Harding,  "McClure's  Magazine,"  vol.  iv, 
p.  624. 

HAT  PORTRAIT  OF  WEBSTER 437 

From  a  photograph  by  F.  Gutekunst  of  the  original  daguerreo 
type  by  F.  de  Berg  Richards,  made  in  Philadelphia,  December  3, 
1846,  when  Webster  was  64. 

WEBSTER  AT  THE  TIME  OF  THE  7TH  OF  MARCH  SPEECH     469 

From  a  photograph  lent  by  "  McClure's  Magazine"  of  the  daguer 
reotype  made  by  Southworth  and  Hawes  in  Boston,  April  22, 
1850,  "McClure's  Magazine,"  vol.  ix,  p.  626.  A  fine,  striking 
likeness,  and  an  attitude  of  defiance  that  seems  to  be  telling  the 
abolitionists  to  do  their  worst. 

DAGUERREOTYPE  OF  WEBSTER  , 497 

From  a  photograph  by  Mr.  H.  H.  H.  Langill  of  the  original  in 
the  possession  of  Dartmouth  College.  This  is  a  most  interesting 
side  view  of  Webster.  It  brings  us  close  to  him  with  start 
ling  realism  and  almost  restores  him  to  life.  It  is  the  only  picture 
that  seems  to  show  the  fine  proportioning  of  his  head  so  often 
described  by  his  contemporaries.  Although  he  is  evidently  an 
old  man,  his  back  and  neck  appear  to  be  still  straight  and  the 
head  well  put  on. 

WEBSTER  SHORTLY  BEFORE  His  DEATH 509 

From  a  photograph  lent  by  "  McClure's  Magazine"  of  the  original 
daguerreotype  made  by  J.  W.  Black  &  Co.,  of  Boston,  "  McClure's 
Magazine,"  vol.  ix,  p.  628. 


v  or 


The  True 
Daniel  Webster 

i 

ORIGIN  AND  EDUCATION 

DANIEL  WEBSTER,  enthusiastically  praised  and  re 
lentlessly  criticised,  blindly  worshipped  and  blindly 
hated,  once  filled  a  space  in  public  estimation  so 
large  and  important,  that  the  present  generation  can 
hardly  realize  it.  ^  Eight  years  he  served  in  the 
lower  house  of  Congress,  nineteen  in  the  Senate,  five 
years  as  Secretary  of  State.  He  was  famous  in  1820, 
and  from  the  time  of  the  reply  to  Hayne  in  1830 
to  his  death  in  1852  his  reputation  was  prodigious  in 
America  and  great  even  in  England,  although  British 
feeling  jt  that  time  was  by  no  means  as  friendly  to 
this  country  as  it  is  now, ^  He  was  the  most_powerful 
intellect,  as  some  say,  and  according  to  others,  the  most 
dishonorable^  public  man  that  New  England  has  ever 
produced.  ^During  the  last  years  of  his  life,  whenever 
he  visited  his  farm  in  New  Hampshire,  crowds  gath 
ered  at  the  stations  along  the  railroad  to  see  him. 
In  fact,  he  gathered  crowds  everywhere^  He  was  "  a 
splendid  creature,"  said  his  friends.  Yes,"  said  his 
enemies,  "  a  fine  animal."  "  He  attained  a  standing," 
says  one  of  his  contemporaries,  "  from  which  human 
greatness  knows  no  progress  " ;  "  He  seemed  so  great," 
said  Theodore  Parker,  "  that  some  men  thought  he  was 
himself  one  of  the  institutions  of  America  "  ;  and  similar 
statements  of  what  seems  now  like  extravagant  admira 
tion  or  extravagant  abuse,  could  easily  be  accumulated* 

15 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

For  many  years  after  his  death  this  enthusiasm, 
accompanied  by  equally  vigorous  condemnation,  re 
mained  unabated.  Men  of  science  speculated  on  the 
cause  of  his  extraordinary  intellectual  power,  while  they 
discussed  the  size  and  weight  of  his  brain;  and  his 
enemies  and  opponents  readily  admitted  the  power  of 
his  eloquence  and  personality. 

Some  of  his  own  New  Englanders  denounced  him; 
no  people  denounced  him  more  than  they,  for  his 
defence  of  the  compromise  with  the  slave  power  in 
1850.  There  is  still,  as  in  Senator  Lodge's  life  of  him, 
a  resentful  sharpness  in  their  criticism.  From  the 
abolitionist  school  of  Lowell,  Emerson,  Theodore 
Parker,  Longfellow,  and  Parton  came  the  most  violent 
attacks.  He  was,  they  tell  us,  indolent  and  slothful; 
not  a  learned  man  or  learned  lawyer,  but  stealing  his 
knowledge  from  others  without  giving  them  credit, — 
a  traitor  to  his  own  principles  and  to  his  own  state,  a 
dishonorable  trimmer  and  renegade  who  would  sacri 
fice  anything  to  his  desire  for  the  Presidency,  a  pen 
sioner  on  the  bounty  of  others,  maintaining  the  opin 
ions  and  interests  of  those  who  paid  his  debts,  extrava- 
i  gant,  reckless  and  careless  with  money  to  the  point  of 
.  dishonesty,  of  excessive  physique,  excessive  enjoyment 
of  the  outer  world,  devoted  excessively  to  hunting  and 
fishing  and  out-door  pleasures,  a  hypocrite  in  religion, 
an  insolvent,  the  ally  of  kidnappers,  the  agent  of  the 
slave  hunters,  the  keeper  of  the  slave  hunter's  dogs, 
a  hard  drinker,  dying  a  drunkard's  death,  and  calling 
1  for  drink,  if  we  can  believe  Poore's  Reminiscences,  with 
his  last  breath. 

Most  of  this  was  enlarged  upon  because  of  his  part 
in  the  compromise  of  1850;  and  its  justice  or  injustice 
will  become  clearer  as  we  proceed.  But  his  accusers' 
name  for  him  was  Ichabod,  the  old  Scripture  phrase 
which  means  there  was  a  glory  which  has  departed. 

Of  admirable  genius,  says  Parton  of  him  in  his 
"  Famous  Americans,"  but  of  deplorable  character,  one 

16 


ORIGIN  AND  EDUCATION 

of  the  largest  and  one  of  the  weakest  of  men.     "  The 
adulation  of  which  he  was  the  victim  at  almost  every 
hour  of  his  existence  injured  and  deceived  him.     He1 
was  continually  informed  that  he  was  one  of  the  great- » 
est  of  living  men,"  until,  says  Parton,  he  came  to  loathe  t 
this  ceaseless  incense.    His  political  opinions,  complains 
Parker,  were  regarded  as  amendments  to  the  consti-' 
tution,  and  his  public  and  private  conduct  part  of  the/ 
evidences  of  Christianity. 

This  adulation,  this  incense,  this  weakness,  this 
degeneration,  these  crimes,  they  traced  back  through 
his  whole  life  and  wrote  biographies  of  him  to  show 
how  it  had  begun  in  his  father's  house  when  he  was  a 
baby,  and  all  to  explain  why  he  supported  their  abomi 
nation,  the  Clay  Compromise  of  1850. 

It  was  no  doubt  an  age  when  our  people  were  much 
given  to  hero  worship  and  extreme  and  sweeping  state 
ments.  But  even  with  this  allowance,  Webster  must  be 
accounted  a  man  of  remarkable  genius.  It  was  not 
merely  that  he  could  marshal  facts  and  arguments  in 
the  great  fields  of  law,  politics  and  diplomacy  as  his 
great  contemporaries  Napoleon  and  Wellington  mar 
shalled  armies,  or  that  his  personal  appearance  was  so 
striking  and  impressive.  These  qualities  alone  would 
not  account  for  his  place  in  the  world.  His  contem 
porary,  Henry  Clay,  had  many  of  these  qualities.  In 
fact,  innumerable  orators  have  produced  wonderful  im 
mediate  effects  upon  their  audiences ;  but  their  speeches 
when  printed  and  read  in  cold  blood,  sixty  years  after 
wards,  have  notbeen  given  as  high  a  permanent  value 
as  Webster's.  {His  printed  speeches  are  literature  and 
literature  of  a  very  high  order.  That  is  his  claim  to 
genius.  It  was  this,  added  to  his  practical  ability  as  a 
lawyer  and  statesman,  that  caused  men  to  stare  with 
wonder/  No  other  American,  not  Clay,  Patrick  Henry, 
Everett,  Choate,  or  Beecher,  has  equalled  him  in  this 
respect.  We  find  no  men  with  whom  to  compare 
him  until  we  go  among  the  greatest  orators  of  the 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

world,  Chatham,  Burke,  Cicero,  Demosthenes;  and 
while  these  may  be  his  superiors  in  certain  respects, 
and  opinions  on  the  question  may  widely  differ,  he, 
nevertheless,  stands  among  them  and  invites  compari 
son.  The  highest  literature  of  oratory  expressing 
American  union  and  nationality  more  nobly  than  any 
one  else  ever  expressed  it;  that  is  Webster. 

We  always  long  to  discover  exactly  what  causes 
produce  such  men.  We  have,  I  suppose,  a  lurking 
idea  that  then  we  might  manufacture  them  at  will. 
We  shall  never  learn  to  manufacture  them;  but  it  is 
interesting  to  try  to  discover  their  causes. 

"MVebster's  lifetime  between  1782  and  1852,  was  a 
period  which  was  productive,  in  New  England,  of  a 
remarkable  list  of  poets,  orators,  historians,  philoso 
phers,  novelists,  and  theologians,  of  such  impressive 
literary  ability  that  their  works  constitute  the  principal 
part  of  American  literature.} 

BORN  BORN 

CHANNING   1780   LONGFELLOW   1807 

WEBSTER    1782   HOLMES    1809 

EVERETT    1794    SUMNER   1811 

BRYANT   1794   PHILLIPS    1811 

PRESCOTT    1796    THEODORE  PARKER 1812 

BANCROFT 1800   MOTLEY 1812 

EMERSON   1803    STOWE  1812 

HAWTHORNE  1804   LOWELL 1819 

WHITTIER    1807    PARKMAN   1823 

These  eighteen  names,  though  confined  to  New 
England  alone,  stand  for  literature  complete  in  all  the 
departments  of  poetry,  philosophy,  history,  oratory, 
romance  and  theology.  In  fact,  they  have  all  the  char 
acteristics  of  what  is  usually  called  a  national  literature, 
complete  in  itself.  There  were  other  names,  like  Judge 
Story,  Rufus  Choate,  George  Hillard,  Edward*  Everett 
IHale,  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  Horace  Mann,  which 
while  perhaps  not  standing  for  men  of  genius  were 


18 


ORIGIN  AND  EDUCATION 

nevertheless  of  such  high  talent  that  they  might  be 
added  to  the  list.  The  physical  appearance  of  nearly  all 
these  men,  as  we  look  at  them  now  in  photographs  or 
old  daguerreotypes  or  in  the  recollection  of  those  who 
can  remember  them,  was  also  remarkable.  They  make 
a  wonderful  collection  of  vigorous  faces ;  and  the  causes 
or  forces,  whatever  they  were,  that  produced  them  must 
have  been  very  powerful  and  complete.  Before  that 
period  of  forty-five  years,  from  1780  to  1825,  no  such 
group  of  men  had  been  produced  in  this  country;  and 
in  the  subsequent  time  of  nearly  a  century,  there  has 
been  no  continuation  of  such  eminent  human  products, 
although  education  and  civilization  are  supposed  to  have 
advanced  and  improved. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  causes  for  this  outburst 
in  New  England,  Webster  seems  to  have  been  a  part 
of  it.  To  that  extent  we  can  account  for  him ;  but  to 
account  for  the  movement  that  produced  the  group  is 
quite  another  matter.  It  may  have  been  stimulated  by 
the  rise  in  Massachusetts  just  at  that  time  of  Unitarian- 
ism  ;  the  setting  free  from  repression  and  Puritanism  of 
a  people  long  accustomed  to  a  love  of  knowledge  and 
to  the  exercise  of  their  minds  in  subtle  expression  and 
delicate  distinctions  of  a  theology  which  was  in  its  way 
a  very  intellectual  one.  This  change  from  Puritanism 
to  Unitarianism  which  began  to  be  felt  about  the  time 
of  the  Revolution,  was,  no  doubt,  the  occasion  and 
opportunity  which  gave  the  natural  powers  of  the 
Massachusetts  people  a  chance  to  spread  out  into  litera 
ture  ;  but  whether  it  was  any  more  than  the  mere  oppor 
tunity,  whether  it  was  a  real  cause,  may  be  questioned. 

It  may  have  been  that  New  England  had  at  that 
time  become  a  country  of  homogeneous  people,  a 
real  nation  instinctively  developing  a  national  literature. 
New  England  had  always  been  set  apart  even  geograph 
ically  by  the  line  of  the  Hudson  River  valley  and  lakes 
Champlain  and  George  on  the  west,  cutting  it  off  from 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

the  rest  of  the  continent.  Within  this  domain,  which 
was  almost  a  large  island,  were  characteristic  soil,  cli 
mate  and  scenery,  and  a  people  of  very  thoroughbred 
stock,  unusually  united  in  all  their  ideas  and  sympathies. 

The  immigration  which  formed  the  New  England 
colonies  had  ceased  after  i64o,  and  from  that  time  these 
unmixed  Anglo-Saxons  had  developed  in  the  natural 
way  by  births.  The  people  were  all  of  the  same  relig 
ion,  of  the  same  ideas  of  government,  and  the  same  inde 
pendent  feeling  which  resented  all  interference  from 
England  and  triumphed  against  her  so  signally  in  the 
Revolution.  There  never  has  been  either  before  or 
since  in  any  part  of  America,  a  stock  of  people  so  homo 
geneous  in  race,  thought,  feeling,  and  religion ;  so  united 
in  their  political  ideas ;  so  devoted  to  education  and 
learning;  and  of  such  long  continued  existence  in  all 
these  characteristics.  They  were  ripe  for  any  sort  of 
national  characteristic  and  naturally,  perhaps,  for  a 
varied  and  complete  literature.  Since  then  the  condi 
tions  have  been  radically  changed.  The  enormous  in 
flux  of  foreigners  of  alien  race,  ideas  and  religion  have 
made  half  the  population  of  New  England  foreign,  de 
stroying  the  homogeneousness  and  native  feeling. 

It  may  possibly  have  been  that  this  outbreak  in  New 
England  was  helped,  though  perhaps  not  caused,  by 
the  general  ideas  of  the  time,  the  inspiration  of  the 
crusade  against  slavery,  the  enthusiasm  of  the  new 
democracy,  the  hopes  and  experiments  in  government 
following  our  own  revolution  and  the  revolution  in 
France,  the  confusion  and  conflict  of  momentous  prin 
ciples  in  the  Napoleonic  wars,  the  hopes  from  the  mar 
vellous  discoveries  in  science  and  the  general  excite 
ment  and  optimism  of  mind  which  was  such  a  tonic 
to  intellect  in  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
All  this  would  naturally  call  out  a  type  of  men  quite 
different  from  those  called  out  by  the  mere  development 
of  wealth,  syndicates  and  corporations.  The  contem 
poraries  in  Europe  of  the  famous  New  Englanders 

20 


ORIGIN  AND  EDUCATION 

were  Napoleon,  Goethe,  Peel,  Disraeli,  Gladstone, 
Macaulay,  Browning,  and  Tennyson. 

Other  explanations  have  been  suggested;  as,  for 
example,  the  wide  diffusion  in  New  England,  for  so 
long  a  time,  of  education  and  learning  among  the  com 
mon  people.  But  in  the  last  sixty  years  that  education 
is  generally  credited  with  having  been  so  improved  and 
extended  that  the  old  methods  are  quite  inadequate  and 
ridiculous.  On  the  other  hand  this  very  improvement 
has  been  regarded  as  an  injury,  the  worshipping  of  false 
gods  under  the  designation  of  reforms,  and  the  modern 
school  system  a  manufactory  of  a  machine-made  prod 
uct  with  interchangeable  parts,  exactly  alike,  and  any 
thing  like  individuality  promptly  suppressed.  Were  a 
Shakespeare  by  any  chance,  they  say,  to  be  dropped 
down  to-day,  a  child,  into  the  common  schools  of  New 
England,  all  the  Shakespeare  in  him  would  be  at  once 
obliterated  beyond  any  possible  recognition. 

Following  these  suggestions  in  their  relation  to 
<  Webster,  we  find  him  about  as  thoroughbred  and  typical 
a  New  Englander  of  that  time  as  it  was  possible  to  be, 
a  native  of  the  native  stock,  brought  up  in  the  old  char 
acteristic  environment  of  religion,  politics  and  education. 

On  his  father's  side  he  was  descended  from  the 
Bachilders,  or  Bachilers,  a  dark  complexioned,  dark 
haired  family,  from  whom  the  poet  Whittier  was  sup 
posed  to  be  descended.  The  migrating  ancestor  of  this 
family  was  a  learned  minister  of  the  Gospel,  of  much 
talent,  and  an  independence  of  character  which  kept 
him  in  continual  hot  water  in  the  old  Puritan  days  in 
Massachusetts. 

His  two  descendants,  Webster  and  Whittier,  who  are 
said  to  have  resembled  him  and  somewhat  each  other 
in  striking  appearance,  would  seem  to  indicate  a  pre 
potency  to  genius  in  the  strain.  Poetic  and  romantic 
sentiment  filled  the  lives  of  both  of  them  and  was  the 
foundation  of  Webster's  oratory.  Webster  had  the 
dark  eyes,  hair  and  complexion  of  the  Bachilders  in 

21 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

excessive  degree.  Several  of  his  brothers  and  sisters 
had  the  light  complexion  of  the  Websters.1) 

He  was  born  in  the  township  of  Salisbury,  near  the 
present  town  of  Franklin,  New  Hampshire,  on  the  i8th 
of  January,  1782,  the  year  before  the  signing  of  the 
treaty  of  peace,  which  closed  the  Revolution.  His 
father,  Ebenezer  Webster,  born  in  1739,  had  been 
brought  up  at  Kingston  in  the  southeast  corner  of  New 
Hampshire,  near  the  sea ;  and  the  family,  it  is  said,  can 
be  traced  in  church  and  town  records  back  to  their  first 
settlement  at  Hampton  on  the  coast  in  the  year  1636. 
The  stock  was  thoroughly  New  England,  and  in  the 
line  of  the  father's  name  they  had  presumably  been 
farmers  and  out-of-doors  people  for  many  generations. 

Ebenezer  is  said  to  have  been  bound  as  an  appren 
tice  at  an  early  age  to  a  man  named  Stevens,  who 
brought  him  up ;  but  in  violation  of  the  articles  of 
apprenticeship,  never  sent  him  to  school.  In  1760,  when 
he  was  about  twenty-one,  he  joined  himself  to  Rogers' 
Rangers  and  served  with  them  for  the  rest  of  the  French 
and  Indian  Wars  until  the  final  peace  in  1763.  These 
rangers  were  woodsmen  soldiers  that  kept  watch  on  the 
Indians  of  the  New  Hampshire  northern  frontier,  re 
sorting,  it  is  said,  to  skates  and  snow-shoes  to  aid  their 
scouting  expeditions  ;  and  they  also  served  with  Amherst 
in  the  invasion  of  Canada.  Their  commander,  Rogers, 
went  over  to  the  loyalist  side  in  the  Revolution.2 

After  the  close  of  the  French  Wars  in  1763,  there 
was  a  movement  among  the  people  in  southern  New 
Hampshire  to  press  northwards  and  settle  in  the  wilder- 

1Whittier  thought  himself  descended  from  the  Bachilders, 
and  it  is  so  stated  in  Pickard's  life  of  him,  vol.  i,  p.  12.  But 
now  a  genealogist  comes  along  who  says  that  the  poet  was 
mistaken,  and  did  not  know  his  own  ancestry.  N.  E.  History 
and  Genealogical  Register,  1896,  vol.  i,  p.  295 ;  Carpenter's 
Life  of  Whittier,  p.  10. 

2Lyman,  Memorials  of  Webster,  pp.  160,  161.  The  appren 
tice  story  is  mentioned  by  Theodore  Parker,  and  does  not 
seem  improbable,  but  I  know  of  no  good  authority  for  it. 

22 


ORIGIN  AND  EDUCATION 

ness  of  the  province,  which  for  more  than  half  a  century- 
had  been  rendered  uninhabitable  by  the  hostility  of  the 
French  in  Canada  and  their  allies  the  Indians.  Ebe- 
nezer  Webster,  then  twenty-four  years  old,  and  having 
risen  to  the  rank  of  captain,  joined  one  of  these  pioneer 
enterprises  that  started  from  Kingston,  and  he  took 
up  some  land  for  a  farm  in  a  new  township  which, 
under  the  leadership  of  Colonel  Stevens,  to  whom  he 
had  been  apprenticed,  was  laid  out  upon  the  edge  of  the 
wilderness  almost  in  the  centre  of  the  province  and  some 
fifteen  miles  north  of  the  present  town  of  Concord. 
The  township  was  four  miles  wide  north  and  south 
along  the  west  side  of  the  Merrimac  River,  and  nine 
miles  long  in  a  southwesterly  direction  to  Mount  Kear- 
sarge.  There  was  for  a  long  time  no  particular  or  im 
portant  town  or  village.  The  settlers  established  their 
clearings  here  and  there,  with  houses  close  to  the  roads 
or  trails  in  the  New  England  manner ;  the  houses  often 
grouped  as  near  together  as  possible  for  mutual  advan 
tage  and  protection.  The  advance  into  the  wilderness 
in  New  England  had  always  proceeded  by  townships  in 
this  way,  instead  of  by  counties  and  the  wider  isolation 
of  the  south. 

Ebenezer's  farm,  as  his  distinguished  son  afterwards 
said,  was  nearer  to  the  North  Star  than  any  other  of 
the  New  England  settlements.  There  was  nothing  but 
wilderness  and  Indians  beyond  it  through  the  White 
Mountains  all  the  way  to  Canada.  The  land  was  about 
three  miles  west  of  the  Merrimac  on  a  hillside  sloping 
up  from  a  little  stream  called  Punch  brook,  still  known 
in  the  neighborhood  as  something  of  a  trout  stream. 
The  youthful  owner  built  himself  a  log  cabin,  married 
Mehitable  Smith,  and  lived  there  peacefully  for  ten  or 
twelve  years.  It  was  rough,  wilderness  farming,  and 
the  land  was  by  no  means  good,  but  he  had  made  a 
pitch,  as  they  called  it,  where  land  was  cheapest.  The 
house  was  built  close  beside  the  trail,  now  a  road,  and 
only  a  few  yards  from  Punch  brook.  The  rugged  hills, 

23 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

some  of  them  in  the  distance  rising  to  the  dignity  of 
mountains,  are  still  heavily  wooded,  and  the  general 
scene,  when  I  visited  it  in  the  summer  of  1910,  was 
probably  very  much  the  same  as  in  Webster's  boyhood. 

"  My  mother,"  says  Webster,  "  was  constantly  visited  by 
Indians  who  had  never  before  gone  to  a  white  man's  house 
except  to  kill  its  inhabitants,  while  my  father,  perhaps,  was 
gone,  as  he  frequently  was,  miles  away,  carrying  on  his  back 
the  corn  to  be  ground  which  was  to  support  the  family." 
(Curtis,  vol.  i,  p.  3,  note.) 

The  farm  was  slowly  improved ;  the  Indians  had 
ceased  to  be  dangerous;  and  the  family,  no  doubt,  en 
joyed  their  free  vigorous  life.  They  dammed  Punch 
brook  to  form  a  pond  and  built  a  grist  mill  to  be  run 
by  the  water  power.  Some  people  in  the  neighborhood 
seem  to  think  it  was  a  saw  mill ;  but  from  all  the  cir 
cumstances  this  is  not  likely ;  the  saw  mill  came  later, 
probably,  and  was  farther  down  Punch  brook.3  The 
log  house  was  abandoned  for  a  better  one  built  of  boards 
on  the  other  side  of  the  road,  and  close  'to  the  mill. 
Whether  Webster  was  born  in  the  log  house  or  in  the 
new  house  has  been  questioned ;  but  there  should  be  no 
doubt  about  it,  because  in  his  speech  at  Saratoga  in  the 
summer  of  1840,  he  distinctly  says  that  he  was  not  born 
in  the  log  house.  If  he  had  been  born  in  the  log  cabin 
he  might  perhaps  have  attained  the  Presidency  of  the 
nation ;  for  his  whig  friend  Harrison  attained  that 
honor  largely  through  his  log  cabin  birth,  which  was  a 
powerful  source  of  popularity  at  that  time. 

The  log  house,  and  very  likely  the  new  house,  long 
ago  disappeared.  Photographs  and  engravings  of  the 
house  now  on  the  land  are  often  published  as  the  birth 
place  of  Webster,  but  this  house  was  built  long  after 
Webster's  time.  A  small  one  story  addition  to  it  has 

8  A  very  old  saw  blade  was  recently  found  in  Punch 
brook,  at  the  site  of  the  mill.  But  see  Private  Correspondence, 
vol.  i,  p.  60,  for  rather  strong  evidence  that  the  mill  was  for 
grinding  corn. 

24 


II 

sr 

~  $ 


ORIGIN  AND  EDUCATION 

been  supposed  to  be  the  house  built  to  replace  the  log 
cabin;  but  judging  from  what  I  learned  on  a  visit 
there  this  is  hardly  probable.4  A  sketch,  however, 
of  the  house  which  replaced  the  log  cabin  was  made  by 
Webster's  private  secretary,  Lanman,  approved  by 
Webster  as  correct,  and  has  been  reproduced  for  this 
volume.  It  is  different  in  appearance  from  the  one- 
story  addition  to  the  modern  house.  The  windows  are 
differently  placed  and  so  is  the  chimney. 

In  the  log  cabin  five  children  were  born,  and  in 
March,  1774,  the  wife  died.  In  August  of  the  same 
year  Ebenezer  married  Abigail  Eastman,  who  also  bore 
him  five  children,  of  whom  Daniel  was  the  next  to  the 
youngest.  This  circumstance  of  his  being  the  youngest 
son  and  next  to  the  youngest  cjiild,  has  been  cited  by 
those  who  believe  that  geniuses  and  remarkable  charac 
ters  are  more  apt  to  appear  in  the  maturer  and  later 
years  of  the  parents. 

When  the  Revolution  broke  out  in  1775  Ebenezer 
took  at  times  a  very  active  part  in  it.  He  led  a  com 
pany  of  his  neighbors  to  join  the  New  England  army 
that  locked  up  the  British  in  Boston.  He  was  at  the 
Battle  of  White  Plains  in  1776,  and  went  to  the  relief 
of  Ticonderoga  in  1777.  He  fought  at  Bennington, 
where  he  was  among  the  first  to  scale  the  breastwork  of 
the  German  troops  and  came  out  so  covered  with  dust 
and  blackened  with  powder  that  he  could  scarcely  be 
recognized.  He  was  at  West  Point  at  the  time  of 
Arnold's  treason,  and  is  said  to  have  stood  guard  or 
commanded  the  guard  before  Washington's  headquar 
ters  the  night  after  the  treason.  Washington  is  re 
ported  to  have  said :  "  Captain  Webster,  I  believe  I 
can  trust  you."  A  great  deal  of  the  time  he  was 
probably  at  home,  like  other  continental  soldiers,  look- 

4  General  Lyman,  who  visited  the  place  in  1849,  says  of  the 
house  in  which  Webster  was  born,  that  not  a  vestige  of  it 
remained  except  the  cellar.  Memorials  of  Webster,  vol.  i, 
p.  170. 

25 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

ing  after  his  family  and  farm  and  serving  on  those 
committees  which  carried  on  civil  government  and 
repressed  the  loyalists.  This  method  of  being  with 
the  army  in  summer,  or  in  an  emergency,  and  the  rest 
of  the  time  keeping  their  family  and  property  together 
and  managing  local  politics,  was  a  makeshift,  trouble 
some  method.  But  it  had  its  advantages,  for  when  at 
home  they  were  to  some  extent  increasing  the  patriot 
resources  by  farming,  and  were  not  bankrupting  Wash 
ington's  army  by  living  on  its  slender  supplies. 

^Though  made  a  colonel  of  militia  in  1785  Ebenezer 
Webster  was  generally,  in  his  own  neighborhood,  called 
Captain,  the  rank  he  had  had  in  the  Revolution.)  His 
education  was  slight.  He  had  never  been  to  school,  it 
is  said,  but  had  taught,  himself  to  read  and  write,  and 
some  of  the  earliest  records  of  the  township  are  in  his 
handwriting.  His  ability  was  not  remarkable  and  yet 
it  might  have  been  so  if  he  had  had  an  education.  That 
was  his  own  opinion  of  himself ;  and  in  a  modified  way 
he  seems  to  have  had  the  beginnings  of^some  of  the 
qualities  which  made  his  son  illustrious.  /Even  without 
education  he  had  strong  character,  sense  and  judg 
ment.  He  held  numerous  public  offices,  took  part  in 
establishing  a  circulating  library  in  his  neighborhood, 
served  in  both  branches  of  the  legislature,  was  a  member 
of  the  convention  which  ratified  the  Federal  Constitu 
tion,  but  was  not,  as  has  been  supposed,  a  member  of 
the  convention  that  framed  the  State  constitution  to  take 
the  place  of  the  old  colony  government  of  New  Hamp 
shire.5  In  the  latter  part  of  his  life  he  was  made  a  lay 
judge  of  the  county  court  of  common  pleas^ 

His  service  in  the  New  Hampshire~^convention  of 
1788  which  voted  to  adopt  the  National  Constitution, 
which  his  son  became  so  distinguished  for  defending 
against  nullification  and  secession,  and  at  another  time 
was  so  maligned  for  supporting  its  compromise  with 

6  New  Hampshire   State   Papers,  vol.   vii,   p.   704 ;  vol.  x, 

P-  5- 

26 


ORIGIN  AND  EDUCATION 

slavery,  is  certainly  interesting  and  has  raised  a  rather 
curious  controversy.  A  majority  of  the  delegates  to 
that  convention  went  to  it  instructed  by  their  con 
stituencies  to  vote  against  the  acceptance  of  the  new 
constitution,  because  it  compromised  with  the  South, 
permitted  the  existence  of  slavery  and  the  return  of 
fugitive  slaves.  Slavery,  though  permitted  by  the  laws 
of  New  Hampshire,  was  not  congenial  to  the  people  or 
the  soil  and  died  a  natural  death,  without  formal  aboli 
tion.  Ebenezer  Webster  represented  Salisbury,  but  had 
a  committee  to  advise  him.  This  committee  advised 
against  the  Constitution;  but  as  the  story  goes,  Ebe 
nezer  finally  obtained  permission  in  favor  of  the  Con 
stitution,  and  when  the  vote  was  about  to  be  taken, 
made  a  remarkable  speech. 

"Mr.  President,  I  have  listened  to  the  arguments  for 
and  against  the  Constitution.  I  am  convinced  such  a  govern 
ment  as  that  Constitution  will  establish,  if  adopted — a  govern 
ment  acting  directly  on  the  people  of  the  States — is  necessary 
for  the  common  defense  and  the  general  welfare.  It  is  the  only 
government  which  will  enable  us  to  pay  off  the  national  debt — 
the  debt  which  we  owe  for  the  Revolution,  and  which  we  are 
bound  in  honor  fully  and  fairly  to  discharge.  Besides  I  have 
followed  the  lead  of  Washington  through  seven  years  of  war, 
and  I  have  never  been  misled.  His  name  is  subscribed  to  this 
Constitution.  He  will  not  mislead  us  now.  I  shall  vote  for 
its  adoption."  (Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xiii,  p.  552.)  ' 

If  that  was  his  speech,  it  shows  us  exactly  where 
Daniel  got  his  oratory  as  finally  matured,  even  his 
famous  use  of  short  sentences  and  several  small  touches 
of  style.  Indeed,  it  is  quite  a  startling  and  close  sum 
mary  of  the  Reply  to  Hayne  and  the  Reply  to  Calhoun. 
But,  unfortunately,  there  is  a  fly  in  the  amber,  and 
the  journal  of  the  convention  shows  that  when  the 
Constitution  came  up  for  final  adoption  or  rejection, 
Ebenezer  was  one  of  four  delegates  who  were  marked 
present,  but  did  not  vote  at  all.  If  he  made  such  a 
fine  speech  why  did  he  not  vote  for  the  object  of  his 
admiration,  especially  if,  as  is  said,  he  made  the  speech 

27 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

just  as  the  vote  was  about  to  be  taken.  Approval  of 
the  Constitution  was  carried  by  a  very  narrow  margin 
and  almost  every  vote  was  needed.  There  is  a  tradition 
that  some  of  the  four  not  voting  were  enticed  away  by 
a  good  dinner  in  another  part  of  the  town,  and  if  Ebe- 
nezer  was  one  of  them,  it  would  account  for  another 
trait  in  his  son.  But  seriously,  this  supposed  speech  is 
not  well  authenticated.  It  rests  on  mere  oral  tradition 
and  may  have  been  touched  up  by  several  hands. 
Though  interesting,  and  even  beautiful  in  its  way,  it  is 
perhaps,  a  little  too  much  so.6 

*About  a  year  after  Daniel  was  born  the  family 
moved  about  three  miles  eastward  to  a  farm  on  the 
banks  of  the  MerrimacO  In  fact,  they  just  followed 
down  Punch  Brook,  as  one  still  does  by  a  rough  road, 
to  where  it  flows  into  the  river,  and  then  turned  south 
ward  into  some  fine  level  interval  land.  Mrs.  Call, 
the  mother  of  the  family  from  whom  they  bought  this 
land,  had  been  killed  there  by  the  Indians  in  1775,  and 
there  was  on  the  place  the  remains  of  an  old  stockade 
fort.  General  Stark,  when  hunting  near  there  many 
years  before,  had  been  captured  by  the  Indians  and  car- 
riecj^to  Canada.7 

vThe  farm  was  afterwards  called  The  Elmsj; 
from  the  numerous  trees  of  that  sort  near  the  house. 
'But  at  first  the  Websters  lived  in  a  house  which  for 
fifteen  years  they  kept  as  a  tavern ;  and  Lanman  says 
that  young  Daniel  had  even  then  those  wonderful  tones 
of  voice,  and  the  teamsters  stopping  at  the  tavern  would 
get  him  to  read  aloud  passages  from  the  Bible.j>  Half 
a  century  afterwards  when  Webster  was  delivering 

6  Mr.  A.  S.  Batchellor,  editor  of  the  New  Hampshire  State 
Papers,  has  kindly  furnished  some  references  on  this  subject. 
Walker,  History  of  N.  H.  Federal  Convention,  pp.  4,  17,  37, 
43,  44;  Proceedings  of  N.  H.  Bar  Association,  vol.  i,  p.  136; 
History  of  Salisbury,  p.  115;  Journal  of  Convention  N.  H. 
State  Papers,  p.  9.  See  also  Curtis  Life  of  Webster,  vol.  i, 
p.  9 ;  Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xiii,  p.  552. 

1  Lanman,  Private  Life  of  Webster,  p.  123. 
28 


ORIGIN  AND  EDUCATION 

political  speeches  in  Ohio,  a  man  came  up  to  him  and 
said,  "  Is  this  the  little  black  Dan  that  used  to  water 
the  horses  ?  "  And  the  dignified  statesman  replied  with 
out  the  slightest  hesitation,  "  Yes,  this  is  the  little  black 
Dan^that  used  to  water  the  horses." 

<In  1799  his  father  exchanged  houses  with  his  son- 
in-law,  William  Haddock,/  and  went  to  live  in  what 
became  known  as  The  Elms  House,  a  few  hundred 
yards  away^  which,  with  a  modern  addition,  is  still 
standing  close  to  the  road,  and  constitutes  part  of  a 
flourishing  State  Orphan  School.  There  seem  to  have 
been  several  houses  grouped  comparatively  near  to 
gether  along  the  road  in  the  usual  New  England 
fashion.8  In  recent  times  there  has  been  an  inclination 
to  ignore  the  tavern  period  as  unbecoming  the  distin 
guished  subject  of  this  biography.  But  as  Webster 
himself  did  not  ignore  it,  and,  according  to  his  private 
secretary,  Lanman,  went  in  his  old  age  and  sat  on  its 
porch  and  told  stories  of  his  boyhood,  no  apology  seems 
to  be  needed  for  recording  the  fact. 

<ihis  move  to  a  more  valuable  farm,  better  in  soil 
and  apparently  with  several  tenant  houses  on  it  and 
good  buildings,  would  seem  to  indicate  a  decided  im 
provement  in  the  circumstances  of  the  family^  But 
their  resources  were  always  small,  the  farm  mortgaged, 
and  the  three  hundred  dollars  the  father  received  for 
his  judgeship  a  godsend.  The  classes  who  made  any 
money  in  the  period  of  the  Revolution  were  speculators, 
privateer  owners,  and  certain  merchants  and  lucky  in 
dividuals.  The  farmers  who  became  soldiers  (and  the 
armies  were  made  up  principally  of  farmers),  usually 
made  no  headway  and  often  lost  everything.  Ebenezer 
was  probably  very  fortunate  to  be  no  worse  off  than 
he  was.  His  small  means  and  the  habits  of  debt  and 

'For  the  date  when  Ebenezer  moved  from  the  tavern 
house  I  am  indebted  to  Mr.  F.  N.  Hancock,  who  lives  at  the 
spot  and  whose  ancestor,  Benjamin  Sanborn,  was  a  contem 
porary  of  Ebenezer  Webster  and  a  grantee  of  adjoining  land. 

29 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

borrowing  entailed  on  his  children  have  been  supposed 
to  account  for  certain  unfortunate  traits  in  the  career 
of  hjs  distinguished  son. 

V'The  narrow  finances  of  the  family  must  not,  how 
ever,  mislead  us.  Standards  and  conditions  were  dif 
ferent  in  those  days.  SThere  is  little  or  no  trace  of 
coarseness  in  the  family  history)  In  fact,  everything 
that  we  know  with  any  certainty  about  them,  especially 
their  letters,  rather  surprises  us  by  a  certain  refine 
ment,  perhaps  more  common  then  than  now,  but  a  char 
acteristic  still  to  be  found  among  New  Englanders  of 
small  means.  Daniel's  apparently  instinctive  refinement, 
shown  not  only  in  his  language,  but  in  his  ideas  and 
whole  mental  attitude,  has  surprised  investigators,  and 
there  has  been  an  inclination  to  account  for  it  by  subse 
quent  experiences  in  his  career.  «feut  the  family  evi 
dently  had  the  Puritan  respect  for  learning ;  the  father's 
mother  had  been  the  daughter  of  a  Puritan  minister; 
and  the  father  educated  himself  apparently  to  his 
utmost.  His  interest  in  establishing  a  circulating 
library,  the  public  offices  he  held,  and  the  ease  with 
which  his  son  Daniel  passed  into  other  social  classes 
imply  something  more  than  a  narrow  or  coarse  outlook 
on  the  world^  We  find  the  same  characteristics  in 
John  Adams  of  the  Revolution,  who  was  also  the  son 
of  axsmall  farmer. 

<The  son  Daniel  was  marked  from  all  the  rest  of 
the  family  by  delicate  health,  so  delicate  that  for  a 
long  time  he  was  never  asked  to  do  any  of  the  heavy 
and  important  work  on  the  farny  His  brothers  and 
sisters  were  strong.^  His  father  is  described  as  a  dark- 
haired,  tall,  robusT  and  handsome  man,  genial,  friendly 
and  humorous.  The  mother,  judging  from  a  silhouette 
that  has  come  down  to  us,  seems  to  have  been  a  stout, 
vigorous  woman,  with  a  face  of  marked  character  and 
intelligence. 

The  exceptional  delicacy  of  Daniel  in  a  family  of 
such  vigorous  children  and  parents  was,  no  doubt,  due 

30 


ORIGIN  AND  EDUCATION 

to  his  precocious  brain,  and  strong  emotional  nature 
which  became  the  foundation  of  his  eloquence.  In 
after-life,  Webster  was,  like  Henry  Clay,  very  emo 
tional.  Tears  uncontrollable  would  well  into  his  eyes. 
Scenes  in  nature,  people,  occasions,  high  thoughts, 
roused  him  to  intensity.  Such  a  nature  in  childhood 
draws  severely  on  the  vital  forces, 
^.fte  was  unusually  fond  of  reading  both  to  himself 
and  aloucL>-  His  father  is  said  to  have  had  a  saw  mill 
on  Punch  Brook,  part  way  between  The  Elms  and  his 
old  place,  and  there  is  a  tale  that  Daniel  would  set  the 
log  and  then  sit  down  and  read  a  book  during  the  ten 
or  fifteen  minutes  that  the  old-fashioned  saw  was  pass 
ing  through  the  timber.9  He  read  everything  he  could 
find,  and  committed  a  great  deal  of  it  to  memory  He  is 
said  to  have  bought  at  William  Hoyt's  country  store,  just 
across  the  road  from  The  Elms  House,  a  cotton  hand 
kerchief  on  which  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
had  been  printed  soon  after  its  adoption,  as  one  of  the 
means  of  giving  it  a  wide  circulation.  Daniel  sat  down 
under  one  of  the  elms,  General  Lyman  tells  us,  and 
read  it.  It  was  his  first  acquaintance  with  the  docu 
ment  he  was  to  become  so  famous  in  defending;  and 
Rufus  Choate  in  his  eulogy  reminds  us  that  Napoleon 
when  a  boy  played  with  a  little  cannon  and  that  Mar 
tin  Luther  found  amusement  in  a  Latin  translation  of 
the  Bible. 

Daniel's  unusual  mind  and  emotionalism  were  evi 
dently  sucking  away  the  vital  force  that  enabled  his 
less  gifted  brothers  to  swing  heavy  axes  and  plough 
all  day  long.  We  all  have  known  instances  of  this 
early  development;  and  if  we  can  believe  certain  edu 
cators  and  physicians  a  large  proportion  of  these  chil 
dren  are  in  modern  times  either  killed  or  ruined  for 
any  high  purpose  by  our  excessive  system  of  educa- 

9  Dearborn,  History  of  Salisbury,  N.  H.,  p.  156;  Lanman, 
Private  Life  of  Webster,  pp.  18,  21,  22;  Lyman,  Memorials 
of  Webster,  vol.  i,  p.  197. 

31 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

tion.  Their  minds  seem  already  so  promising  that  it  is 
believed  that  they  can  be  forced  to  wonderful  results, 
when  the  true  method  is  to  let  them  alone,  not  force 
them  at  all,  or  even  stop  their  schooling.  Little  Daniel 
and  Henry  Clay  in  the  modern  environment  would  have 
bent  over  desks,  breathed  bad  air,  become  excessively 
smart,  worn  spectacles  at  fourteen,  and  for  the  rest 
of  their  lives  have  been  brilliant  minds  in  crippled 
bodies,  seedy,  solemn-faced  and  peculiar. 

But  Webster  was  born  to  more  fortunate  condi 
tions.  His  parents  knew  none  of  the  modern  reason 
ing  on  these  subjects;  there  were  no  books  on  nervous 
diseases;  and  in  old  Dr.  Johnson's  dictionary  the  word 
nervous  meant  strong.  *The  parents  did  exactly  the 
right  thing,  for  Daniel.  He  was  expected  to  do  only 
the  lightest  work;  he  was  taught  to  read,  he  could  not 
remember  when,  but  supposed  his  mother  and  sisters 
taught  him ;  and  for  the  rest  he  could  play  and  roam 
through  the  woods  and  fields  to  his  heart's  content. 

He  acquired,  as  he  tells  us,  a  love  of  play  and  an 
admiration  for  the  great  out-of-doors,  which  lasted  all 
his  life ^and  as  a  boy  he  certainly  had  golden  oppor 
tunities  at  Elms  Farm.  Its  flat,  fertile  fields  stretched 
toward  the  shores  of  the  Merrimac,  only  a  few  hundred 
yards  away.  High  hills,  the  foothills  of  the  White 
Mountains,  bounded  the  sides  of  the  valley ;  and  beyond 
them  the  great  elephant-like  masses  of  the  main  range 
began  to  lift  themselves  to  view.  Less  than  three  miles 
north  of  the  farm  the  two  streams,  the  Pemigewasset 
and  the  Winnepisoegee,  unite  to  form  the  Merrimac. 
The  first,  "the  beau-ideal  of  a  mountain  stream,  cold, 
noisy  and  winding,"  as  Webster  called  it,,  comes  direct 
from  the  innumerable  brooks  of  the  mountain  slopes. 
The  other  is  the  outlet  of  Lake  Winnepisoegee.  What 
a  playground  it  was  for  a  giant  intellect!  Could  the 
gods  themselves  have  designed  a  better  nursery  for  the 
infant  Hercules? 

He  wandered  all  over  it;  he  became  a  naturalist, 
32 


WEBSTER  HOUSE  AT  ELMS  FARM 


THE  INTERVAL  LAND  ALONG  THE  RIVER,  ELMS  FARM 


ORIGIN  AND  EDUCATION 

a  minute  observer  of  nature  and  a  sportsman.  He 
watched  how  the  river  changed  its  bed  or  deepened 
its  channel,  "  the  philosophy  of  streams,"  as  he  after 
wards  called  it.  He  remembered  all  his  life  how  the 
salmon  and  the  shad  came  up  the  river  in  the  spring, 
"  shook  hands  and  parted  "  at  the  confluence  of  the 
two  streams,  "  the  shad  all  going  into  the  warmer  water 
of  the  lake  and  the  salmon  keeping  in  the  cold  mountain 
torrent,  which  they  continued  to  ascend,  as  used  to  be 
saidKuntil  their  back  fins  were  out  of  water."  10 

vAn  old  Englishman,  Robert  Wise,  who  had  been  a 
sailor  with  Admiral  Byng  in  the  Mediterranean,  a 
soldier  at  the  Battle  of  Minden,  and  had  deserted  to 
the  Americans  in  the  Revolution,  had  a  cottage  with  his 
wife  on  the  Webster  farm.  He  taught  Daniel  to  fish, 
wandered  over  the  country  with  him  and  told  him  tales 
of  France,  Spain,  and  Holland  and  the  "  yellow-haired 
Prince  Ferdinand.^ 

"  Alas,  poor  Robert !  I  have  never  so  attained  the  narra 
tive  art  as  to  hold  the  attention  of  others  as  thou  with  thy 
Yorkshire  tongue  hast  held  mine.  Thou  hast  carried  me  many 
a  mile  on  thy  back,  paddled  me  over  and  over  and  up  and  down 
the  stream,  and  given  whole  days  in  aid  of  my  boyish  sports ; 
and  asked  no  meed  but  that  at  night  I  would  sit  down  at  thy 
cottage  door  and  read  to  thee  some  passages  of  thy  country's 
glory!"  (Autobiography,  Correspondence,  vol.  i,  p.  16.) 

In  recent  years,  with  our  immense  urban  popula 
tions,  cut  off  from  the  woods  and  fields,  nature  study,  as 
it  is  called,  has  been  introduced  into  our  schools  to 
mitigate  the  rank  materialism  and  contempt  for  every 
thing  else,  which  are  the  bane  of  American  life.  It 
is  supposed  to  restore  that  honest  admiration  and  en 
thusiasm  for  the  beauties  of  nature  and  the  universe 
of  God,  which  are  primitive  and  elemental  in  mankind. 
Webster  got  this  "  culture  study  "  in  the  fullest  measure 
and  it  tinged  the  point  of  view  of  his  eloquence  and  all 
his  after  life.  Henry  Clay  had  this  same  passion  for 

10Lyman,  Memorials  of  Webster,  vol.  i,  pp.  155-159. 
3  33 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

nature  and  used  to  say  that  his  farm  at  Ashland  was 
his  real  life  and  politics  and  law  incidentals.  t  Web 
ster's  passion  for  such  things  was  stronger,  and^he  was 
always  escaping  to  nature  and  sport  at  the  slightest 
opportunity.^  His  speeches  charm  the  mind  because  you 
see  through  the  words  into  nature.  His  luminous 
statement  of  dry,  legal  and  political  ideas  is  usually 
luminous  because  he  instinctively  illustrates  it  from 
something  in  those  scenes  of  nature  in  which  his  intel 
lect  lived  nine-tenths  of  the  time. 

The  sun,  moon  and  stars,  the  ocean  and  winds, 
animals,  trees  and  homely  scenes  and  thoughts  are 
found  at  the  basis  of  nearly  all  the  remarkable  quota 
tions  from  his  works.  The  first  words  of  the  famous 
reply  to  Hayne  spellbound  his  audience  by  the  sudden 
appeal  to  universal  human  sympathy,  to  the  mariner 
tossed  about  in  thick  weather  and  on  an  unknown  sea 
and  suddenly  availing  himself  of  'the  first  glance  of 
the  sun  to  take  his  latitude. 

$.s  he  grew  older  he  had  to  be  given  the  slight 
schooling  which  the  neighborhood  afforded.  His  father 
was  anxious  to  educate  his  children  to  the  full  extent 
of  his  limited  ability.  The  schools  were  kept  by  what 
may  be  called  itinerant  teachers,  who  taught  part  of 
each  year  in  several  neighborhoods.  Daniel  followed 
them  about,  sometimes  having  to  walk  two  or  three 
miles  and  when  too  far  away  he  was  boarded  in  a 
family  near  the  teacher  A  x 

rt  In  these  schools,"  he  says,  "  nothing  was  taught  but 
reading  and  writing;  and  as  to  them,  the  first  I  generally 
could  perform  better  than  the  teacher,  and  the  last  a  good 
master  could  hardly  instruct  me  in ;  writing  was  so  laborious, 
irksome  and  repulsive  an  occupation  to  me  always.  My  masters 
used  to  tell  me  that  they  feared,  after  all,  my  fingers  were 
destined  for  the  plough  tail."  (Autobiography,  Correspond 
ence,  vol.  i,  p.  7-) 

These  teachers  were  usually,  no  doubt,  very  young 
men,  students  themselves,  as  was  so  long  the  custom  in 

34 


ORIGIN  AND  EDUCATION 

New  England.  One  of  them  named  Tappan  must  have 
been  quite  young,  for  he  outlived  Webster,  and  one  of 
the  last  acts  of  Webster's  life  was  to  send  him  a  pres 
ent  of  money  for  his  old  age.11 

Webster's  contemporary,  Henry  Clay,  with  whom 
one  always  instinctively  compares  him,  had  this  same 
sort  of  schooling  in  a  little  log  house  in  Virginia, 
and  in  the  end  far  less  education  than  Webster.  It  was 
not  a  severe  education  in  those  New  Hampshire  winter 
schools  to  which  the  boys  came  romping  through  the 
deep  snow  with  their  breath  frozen  in  hoar  frost  on 
their  curly  hair.  It  would  hardly  have  been  an  injury 
to  the  nervous  system.  When  we  consider  the  elabo 
rateness  and  the  time  spent,  the  number  and  variety  of 
studies  of  the  modern  school  system,  the  ever-changing 
text-books  each  one  more  perfect  than  its  predecessor, 
the  ever-changing  theories  each  one  stamping  its  prede 
cessor  as  ridiculous,  we  wonder  at  the  old-fashioned 
system  of  our  fathers  which  seems  to  have  produced 
as  good  culture  and  ability  as  our  own.  When  we  con 
sider  the  vast  expenditure  of  thought,  energy,  experi 
ment,  and  money  to  produce  during  the  last  seventy 
years  the  modern  system,  it  seems  at  times  as  if  the 
result  was  hardly  in  proportion  to  the  effort.  Of 
course,  changed  conditions,  science,  steam  and  electric 
ity,  vast  wealth  and  enormous  population  have  pro 
duced  the  modern  complexity  of  life,  up  to  which,  we 
are  told,  we  must  be  educated.  If  we  must  have  a 
huge  population  like  China  and  the  East  we  must  be 
content  with  a  sort  of  Chinese  civilization,  in  which 
individuality  is  considerably  suppressed.  We  have  now 
such  enormous  masses  of  future  voters,  that  we  must 
educate  them  artificially,  even  at  the  cost  of  crippling 
1  or  even  killing  considerable  numbers  of  them,  and  some 
j  of  these  the  brightest  and  most  ambitious.  From  the 
:  utilitarian  point  of  view,  such  sacrifice  of  the  innocents 

u  Lanman's  Private  Life  of  Webster,  p.  17. 
35 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

may  be  absolutely  necessary  for  the  general  result. 
But  at  the  same  time  it  may  be  well  to  know  exactly 
what  we  are  doing,  and  not  to  forget  some  of  the 
obvious  advantages  of  Daniel  Webster's  youth,  as  well 
as  of  the  youth  of  Henry  Clay  and  other  remarkable 
men  of  that  era.  As  a  foundation  of  eminent  ability, 
or  any  ability,  it  is  difficult  to  find  any  substitute  for 
physical  well-being  and  native  freshness ;  and  eloquence 
is  as  much  a  physical  as  a  mental  quality. 

sAs  he  passed  on  his  teens  Daniel's  delicate  health  be 
gan  to  improve.  He  began  to  do  some  of  the  heavier 
farm  work;  but  was  slow,  he  admits,  to  learn  to  mow; 
and  was  continually  Basking  his  father  to  hang  his 
scythe  differently^  At  last  the  father's  patience  was 
exhausted  and  he"  told  the  boy  to  hang  the  scythe  to  suit 
himself,  whereupon  Daniel,  as  the  story  goes,  hung  it 
in  a  tree  and  left  the  field. 

M/Vhen  once  his  youthful  ill  health  had  passed,  his 
constitution  became  remarkably  vigorous.  His  mature 
life  was  comparatively  free  from  illness  and  disease 
until  the  one  of  which  he  died  after  a  life  of  severe 
toil  when  over  seventy  years  olc^>  His  resisting  power 
was  excellent;  he  seems  to  have  suffered  from  none  of 
the  ordinary  acute  diseases ;  and  was  rarely  during  his 
long  life  disabled  from  his  very  arduous  labors.  Dur 
ing  his  last  eighteen  years  he  was  more  or  less  troubled, 
his  physician  said,  with  a  tendency  to  diarrhoea,  becom 
ing  persistent  during  the  last  three  years  of  his  life. 
During  most  of  the  same  period  he  had  annual  hay 
fever.  He  is  generally  supposed  to  have  injured  him 
self  by  the  convivial  habits  he  learned  among  the  Sena 
tors  in  Washington.  In  May,  1852,  when  more  than 
seventy  years  old,  he  was  hurled  from  his  wagon  and 
received  injuries,  especially  in  the  head,  which  it  was 
thought  at  the  time  would  have  killed  most  strong  men. 
But  he  recovered  and  made  speeches  and  wrote  diplo 
matic  papers,  which  showed  an  unimpaired  intellect. 
About  four  months  after  the  accident  his  physician 
noticed  the  first  symptoms  of  cirrhosis  of  the  liver,  of 

36 


ORIGIN  AND  EDUCATION 

which  he  died  in  about  two  months.  During  his  last 
hours,  as  well  as  in  his  previous  life,  his  power  of 
resistance  to  disease  surprised  his  physicians. 

Both  physically  and  mentally  he  evidently  went  back 
to  some  very  powerful  origin.  His  brothers  and  sisters, 
though  more  vigorous  in  the  beginning,  were  rather 
short  lived;  and  he  far  outlived  them  all.  As  soon 
as  he  had  conquered  that  early  youthful  weakness, 
which  he  tells  us  was  not  until  he  was  twenty-five,  he 
grew  rapidly  into  that  superbly  robust  and  powerful 
man  of  intellect  which,  it  is  said,  once  caused  a  work 
man  in  the  streets  of  Liverpool  to  turn  and  exclaim, 
"  My  God,  there  goes  a  king !  "  Anecdotes  of  this 
sort  are  numerous  all  through  his  life.  His  physique 
was  so  impressive,  it  so  exactly  matched  the  intellect 
that  flamed  in  his  black  eyes  under  their  heavy  brows, 
that  he  could  hardly  have  avoided  the  universal  dis 
tinction  that  awaited  him.  Theodore  Parker  said  that  (, 
he  had  a  lion's  mouth  that  could  smile  as  softly  as  a 
woman's.  The  muscles  and  nerves  in  his  face  must 
have  been  of  very  perfect  development  and  no  actor 
ever  had  them  under  better  control. 

Though  fond  of  good  living  and  wine,  foe  is  said 
not  to  have  smoked  in  his  mature  years,  and  his  white, 
handsome  teeth,  an  inheritance  it  seems  from  his  father, 
retained  their  appearance  until  late  in  life.  He  was  not 
tall;  five  feet  ten  inches,  his  .physician  reported;  and 
his  usual  weight  190  pounds.12  But  he  always  gave  the 

"American  Journal  of  Medical  Sciences,  January,  1853, 
vol.  xxv,  p.  no;  Harvey  Reminiscences,  pp.  7,  210,  277;  Lan- 
man,  Private  Life  of  Webster,  pp.  119,  179,  20,  117.  When  a 
youth  just  out  of  college  he  appears  to  have  smoked.  Cor 
respondence,  vol.  i,  pp.  93,  118.  Harvey  says  that  at  Marsh- 
field  he  kept  cigars  for  his  friends,  but  did  not  use  them  him 
self.  There  has  been  much  dispute  about  his  height,  some 
guesses  going  over  6  feet.  I  have  given  5  feet  10,  because  it 
is  the  report  of  the  physician  who  made  the  post-mortem 
examination.  Senator  Hoar  gives  his  height  as  a  trifle  over  \ 
5  feet  9  inches  and  his  weight  as  154  pounds,  but  says  that  ; 
he  always  looked  as  if  he  were  over  6  feet  and  weighed  200. 
Autobiography  of  Seventy  Years,  vol.  i,  p.  142. 

37 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

impression  of  being  taller  than  he  really  was.  It  was 
the  harmony  of  proportion,  the  infusion  of  mind  and 
physical  strength  in  his  whole  appearance,  that  pro 
duced  this  effect.  As  he  advanced  into  middle  age  the 
slimness  seen  in  his  early  portraits  changed.  He  be 
came  broad  and  heavy  around  the  chest;  and  it  was 
no  doubt  at  this  period  that  his  weight  went  up  to  190 
pounds,  too  much,  according  to  the  usual  rule,  for  his 
height.  In  the  first  half  of  his  career,  judging  from 
his  portraits,  his  weight  could  hardly  have  exceeded 
165  pounds.  One  of  his  most  marked  characteristics 
in  the  latter  half  of  his  life  was  a  peculiar  firmness 
of  tread  and  firm  solidity  when  he  stood  to  speak, 
which  added  greatly  to  his  impressiveness.13  That 
solid  building  of  argument,  step  by  step,  irrefragable 
and  unescapable,  while  his  delighted  hearers  listened 
almost  breathless,  was  conformable  with  his  whole  ap 
pearance.  This  characteristic  is  evidently  intended  to 
be  conveyed  in  the  Burnham  bronze  statue  of  him  in 
Central  Park,  New  York ;  and  it  appears  in  the  daguer 
reotype  taken  of  him  when  he  was  sixty-eight  years 
old  at  the  time  of  the  seventh  of  March  speech.  Those 
were  the  days  of  his  vigorous  old  age  when  his  black 
eyes  still  flamed  under  his  superb  brow  and  his  face 
was  "  rugged  with  volcanic  fires." 

It  was  a  picture,  they  say,  to  see  Webster  in  the 
Supreme  Court,  standing  firm  as  a  rock,  beautifully 
dressed  and  solemnly  listening  to  old  Chief  Justice  Mar 
shall,  an  almost  equally  picturesque  figure,  delivering 
an  opinion.  Webster's  hands  and  feet,  it  is  said,  were 
rather  small,  and  his  forearm  was  not  long  like  Henry 
Clay's.  This  comparative  shortness  of  forearm  was 
probably  the  reason  why  Webster  made  so  few  gestures. 
It  is  rather  difficult  for  a  man  with  a  short  forearm  to 
make  good  or  graceful  gestures  in  public  speaking. 
Clay's  long  arm  and  hand  were  in  this  respect  a  great 
advantage. 

18  Everett,  Orations  and  Speeches,  vol.  iv,  p.  159. 
38 


ORIGIN  AND  EDUCATION 

Webster  is  described  as  a  young  man  by  N.  P. 
Rogers,  of  New  Hampshire,  who,  with  perhaps  some 
exaggeration,  gives  the  picturesque  impression  he  pro 
duced  in  one  of  his  first  important  cases. 

"  There  was  a  man  tried  for  his  life  and  the  judges  chose 
Webster  to  plead  for  him ;  and  from  what  I  can  learn,  he 
never  has  spoken  better  than  he  did  there  where  he  first 
began.  He  was  a  black  raven-haired  fellow  with  an  eye 
as  black  as  death's  and  as  heavy  as  a  lion's — that  same  heavy 
look,  not  sleepy,  but  as  if  he  did  not  care  about  anything 
that  was  going  on  about  him  or  anything  anywhere  else.  He 
did  not  look  as  if  he  was  thinking  about  anything,  but  as  if  he 
would  think  like  a  hurricane  if  he  once  got  waked  up  to  it. 
They  say  the  lion  looks  so  when  he  is  quiet.  .  .  .  Webster 
would  sometimes  be  engaged  to  argue  a  case  just  as  it  was 
coming  to  trial.  That  would  set  him  thinking.  It  would 
not  wrinkle  his  forehead,  but  made  him  restless.  He  would 
shift  his  feet  about,  and  run  his  hand  up  over  his  forehead, 
through  his  Indian-black  hair,  and  lift  his  upper  lip  and  show 
his  teeth,  which  were  as  white  as  a  hound's."  (Harvey's 
Reminiscences,  p.  49.) 

William  Lloyd  Garrison,  the  abolitionist,  who  saw 
most  of  the  distinguished  men  of  both  Europe  and 
America,  remarks  on  how  often  their  personal  appear 
ance  failed  to  conform  to  the  impression  one  had 
acquired  from  their  deeds  or  writings;  and  he  was 
particularly  struck  with  thisjyhen  he  saw  the  very  weak 
presence  of  Wilberforce.  N§ut  Webster,  he  said,  was 
a  remarkable  instance  of  perfect  conformity  of  physique 
to  intellect.  He  looked  what  he  was.> 

"His  body  is  compact  and  of  Atlantean  massiveness,  with 
out  being  gross;  his  head  is  of  magnificent  proportions — the 
perfection  of  vast  capaciousness;  his  glance  is  a  mingling  of 
the  sunshine  and  the  lightning  of  heaven ;  his  features  are  full 
of  intellectual  greatness."  (W.  L.  Garrison,  The  Story  of  His 
Life,  vol.  i,  p.  357.) 

In  mature  years  he  became  very  careful  and  precise 
in  his  dress  and  appearance.  In  fact,  he  dressed  most 
carefully  for  every  speech.  The  costume  he  finally 
adopted  for  the  court  and  the  Senate  was  a  blue  coat 

39 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

with  brass  buttons,  cut  very  much  like  the  modern 
evening  dress  coat,  a  buff  waistcoat  and  black  trousers. 
This  was  his  fighting  uniform  known  everywhere,  and 
he  always  looked  particularly  handsome  in  it.  For 
other  occasions  he  is  said  to  have  worn  white  or  col 
ored  waistcoats,  and  often  white  trousers.  His  friend 
Mr.  Curtis  has  described  him  in  middle  age  as  full 
of  life  and  health,  "  as  capacious  of  labor  as  of  the 
enjoyment  of  all  that  the  senses  can  enjoy,  perfect  in 
grace,  and  dignity,  speaking  in  every  motion  and  every 
look  of  power  and  energy  and  vitality." 

His  supreme  confidence  was  always  one  of  the  strik 
ing  characteristics  of  his  genius,  and  a  very  important 
part  of  his  success  as  an  orator.  In  every  presence  he 
was  unconsciously  pre-eminent.  Such  elemental  cool 
ness  groes  only  with  sound  nerves  and  a  perfection  of 
physical  constitution  which  has  every  faculty  under 
complete  control  and  obedient  to  instant  call.  No  man 
of  his  time  grasped  more  easily  and  completely  the 
whole  complexity  of  a  contest  or  a  debate ;  no  man  saw 
so  instantly  the  bearing  of  every  point  and  turn  as  it 
arose.  He  prepared  himself  for  the  least  or  for  the 
greatest  occasion  merely  by  having  his  mind  full  of 
the  subject,  and  then  he  was  ready  at  any  moment  to 
pour  it  forth  or  use  it  as.  required.  After  the  first 
shyness  of  youth  had  passed  vast  audiences  and  mo 
mentous  occasions  had  no  terrors  or  embarrassments 
for  Webster. 

His  contemporaries  said  that  he  always  began  a 
speech  in  a  low  key.  His  appearance  and  equipoise 
were  very  impressive  as  he  arose ;  but  he  spoke  very 
quietly  at  first  and  was  gradually  aroused  by  the  im 
portance  of  his  arguments  and  subject.  He  would 
never  go  beyond  the  occasion.  If  he  were  addressing 
the  court  on  a  point  of  law,  and  ladies  and  spectators 
had  crowded  in  to  hear  him,  they  heard  nothing  but  a 
dry,  legal  argument,  though  delivered  in  very  im 
pressive  tones.  No  amount  of  flattery  could  move  him 

40 


ORIGIN  AND  EDUCATION 

from  the  path  of  good  taste.  Hejiever  attempted,  like 
so  many  orators  of  his  timg^jtQ ^create  an  artificial  crisis 
or  to  make  the  small  magnificent. 

So  many  distinguished  men  have  risen  from  appa 
rently  adverse  circumstances  on  farms,  or  on  the  fron 
tier  in  America,  that  it  has  become  a  commonplace  of 
biography  to  magnify  the  difficulties  of  such  an  origin 
and  exalt  the  character  that  has  overcome  such  over 
whelming  impediments.  I  question,  however,  whether 
in  this  country  such  impediments  have  ever  been  real 
ones.  The  notion  was,  no  doubt,  borrowed  from  Eu 
rope,  where  the  peasantry  have  been  held  down  by 
law  or  artificial  distinctions.  In  America  the  so-called 
difficulties  of  "  humble  origin  and  youthful  poverty  " 
have  been  in  many  cases  most  decided  advantages. '  But 
the  general  tone  has  been  so  long  the  other  way  and 
popular  oratory  has  so  exaggerated  the  misery  and 
hopelessness  of  any  boy  not  born  a  millionaire,  and 
the  miracle  of  his  rising  out  of  it,«that  men  are  often 
ashamed  to  admit  that  they  had  any  advantages  in  their 
youth  and  instinctively  belittle  their  early  education. 

There  have  been,  of  course,  attempts  to  give  Web 
ster  the  distinction  of  rising  out  of  miseries  and  hard 
ships.  The  "  dark  frowning  forests  "  of  his  early  home, 
the  terrors  of  that  bleak  climate  and  wilderness,  and 
the  destitution  of  farm  life  are  suggested  in  the  usual 
way  as  if  they  had  been  demons  conspiring  to  crush  him. 
But  it  is  more  likely  that  they  were  his  good  angels 
conspiring  to  give  every  advantage  to  a  precocious 
mind. 

I  spent  four  years  at  school  within  twenty  miles 
of  Webster's  home  in  New  Hampshire.  I  have  seen 
the  thermometer  go  to  thirty  degrees  below  zero,  the 
snow  deep  on  the  ground  from  November  to  April,  and 
every  vehicle  changed  from  wheels  to  runners.  I  have 
snow-shoed  over  the  hills,  canoed  on  the  lakes  and 
streams,  climbed  old  Kearsarge  and  encountered  almost 
all  the  characteristics  of  nature  in  that  region.  It 

4i 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

f  would  require  a  great  deal  to  convince  me  that  there 
is  anything  but  light,  beauty  and  bounding  health  in 
those  foothills  of  the  White  Mountains.  I  can  recol 
lect  nothing  dark  or  frowning  except  the  faces  of  my 
teachers ;  and  I  do  not  believe  that  Webster's  home  and 
its  surroundings  could  have  been  improved  upon. 

Sms  father's  experiences  in  the  French  Wars  and 
the  Revolution,  related  by  the  fireside,  must  have  been 
inspiring  to  a  boy.  The  father  had  a  fine  voice,  "  an 
untaught,  yet  correct  ear,"  the  son  says,  "  and  a  keen 
perception  of  all  that  was  beautiful  or  sublime  in 
thought."14  He  often  read  the  Bible  aloud  to  his 
children,  especially  the  grand  poetry  of  the  Old  Testa 
ment.  V  Hence  those  marvelous  tones  of  the  son  and  his 
love  "For  all  similar  literature.  Hence,  also,  no  doubt, 
the  son's  correct  ear,  and  fine  sense  of  harmony  in  the 
formation  of  sentences.  The  same  father's  prominence 
in  the  politics  of  the  State  was  another  important  prep 
aration  for  the  son^>  Is  there  a  modern  university  that 
can  give  any  more  ? 

Webster  himself,  it  is  perhaps  needless  to  say,  had 
never  a  complaint  to  make  of  the  circumstances  of  his 
youth.  He  despised  all  the  tricks  of  the  demagogue 
and  that  one  among  them.  He  loved  all  the  scenes  and 
circumstances  of  his  childhood  and  was  proud  of  them. 

I  Henry  Clay  once  descended  so  far  as  to  make  capital 
for  himself  by  saying  that  he  had  inherited  from  his 
father  nothing  but  ignorance  and  indigence.  But  rather 
than  say  such  a  thing  as  that  Webster  would  have  cut 
off  his  right  hand. 

<When  he  was  fourteen  his  father  became  more  am 
bitious  for  him,  and  one  hot  July  day  in  the  hay  field 
announced  his  intention  to  give  him  a  better  education 
than  the  other  children.  Either  on  account  of  his  deli 
cate  health  or  his  talents,  Daniel  seems  to  have  been 
always  particularly  favored  by  the  whole  family,  an 

"  Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xiii,  p.  572. 
42 


ORIGIN  AND  EDUCATION 

unfortunate  circumstance,  says  Senator  Lodge,  and  one 
which  tended  to  spoil  him  and  produce  some  of  the  less 
desirable  traits  of  his  later  year^.> 

"  Of  a  hot  day  in  July,  it  must  have  been  in  one  of  the 
last  years  of  Washington's  administration,  I  was  making  hay 
with  my  father,  just  where  I  now  see  a  remaining  elm  tree. 
About  the  middle  of  the  forenoon  the  Honorable  Abiel  Foster, 
M.C,  who  lived  in  Canterbury,  six  miles  off,  called  at  the 
house,  and  came  into  the  field  to  see  my  father.  He  was  a 
worthy  man,  college  learned,  and  had  been  a  minister,  but 
was  not  a  person  of  any  considerable  natural  power.  My 
father  was  his  friend  and  supporter.  He  talked  awhile  in  the 
field,  and  went  on  his  way.  When  he  was  gone  my  father 
called  me  to  him  and  we  sat  down  beneath  the  elm,  on  a  hay 
cock.  He  said,  '  My  son,  that  is  a  worthy  man ;  he  is  a  mem 
ber  of  congress ;  he  goes  to  Philadelphia  and  gets  six  dollars 
a  day,  while  I  toil1  here.  It  is  because  he  had  an  education 
which  I  never  had.  If  I  had  had  his  early  education  I  should 
have  been  in  Philadelphia  in  his  place.  I  came  near  it  as  it 
was.  But  I  missed  it,  and  now  I  must  work  here.'  '  My  dear 
father,'  said  I,  '  you  shall  not  work.  Brother  and  I  will  work 
for  you,  and  will  wear  our  hands  out,  and  you1  shall  rest.' 
And  I  remember  to  have  cried  and  I  cry  now  at  the  recollec 
tion.  '  My  child,'  said  he,  '  it  is  of  no  importance  to  me.  I 
now  live  but  for  my  children.  I  could  not  give  your  elder 
brothers  the  advantages  of  knowledge,  but  I  can  do  something 
for  you.  Exert  yourself,  improve  your  opportunities,  learn, 
learn,  and  when  I  am  gone,  you  will  not  need  to  go  through 
the  hardships  which  I  have  undergone,  and  which  have  made 
me  an  old  man  before  my  time.'"  (Correspondence,  vol.  ii, 
p.  228.) 

It  might  be  questioned  which,  in  the  end,  went 
through  the  most  hardships,  the  father  or  the  son. 
But  the  following^May,  1796,  the  son  went  to  the 
Phillips  Academy  at  Exeter,  since  then  a  famous  school, 
but  at  that  time  of  only  about  fifteen  years'  standing. 

The  boy  had  been  much  of  a  reader  at  home,  as  was 
apparently  the  whole  family.  He  had  read  Addison's 
"  Spectator,"  one  of  the  chief  standards  of  the  time, 
and  a  book  on  which,  it  will  be  remembered,  Benjamin 
Franklin  trained  himself  in  his  youthp*and  which  is 
supposed  to  have  helped  to  give  him  his  masterful 

43 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

facility  in  the  use  of  language,*  Webster  may  owe 
almost  as  great  a  debt  to  it.  He  tells  us  of  his  delight 
in  reading  the  verses  of  Chevy  Chase  quoted  in  it.  "I 
could  not  understand,"  he  says,  "  why  it  was  necessary 
that  the  author  of  the  *  Spectator '  should  take  such 
great  pains  to  prove  that  Chevy  Chase  was  a  good 
story;  that  was  the  last  thing  I  doubted."  <He  had 
learned  by  heart  the  psalms  and  hymns  of  Dr.  Watts, 
and  could  repeat  the  whole  of  Pope's  "  Essay  on  Man." 
"  We  had  so  few  books,"  he  says,  "  that  to  read  them 
once  or  twice  was  nothing.  We  thought  that  they  were 
all  to  be  got  by  heart'** 

<fn  short,  the  boy's  susceptible  mind  was  nourished 
on  some  of  the  most  vigorous  literature  in  the  language 
wrought  into  his  being  by  memorizing*  What  could  be 
a  better  standard  than  Chevy  Chase,*that  most  exciting 
of  deer  hunts,  in  which  "  before  high  noon  they  had 
a  hundred  fat  bucks  slain."  And  before  sunset  the 
hunters  under  Earl  Percy  and  Earl  Douglas  had  slain 
each  other  by  thousands.  The  simplicity  of  the  narra 
tive  will  delight  us  forever. 

*'  To  drive  the  deere  with  hound  and  home 

Erie  Percy  took  his  way. 
The  child  may  rue  that  is  unborn 
The  hunting  of  that  day." 

Then  that  archer  who  had  a  "  bow  bent  in  his 
hand  made  of  a  trusty  tree  " — was  there  ever  a  more 
perfect  sentence  of  primitive  directness  than  his  use  of 
the  bow  upon  Sir  Hugh  ? 

"  Against   Sir  Hugh    Montgomery, 

So  right  the  shaft  he  sett, 
The  grey  goose  wing  that  was  thereon, 
In  his  heart's  blood  was  wett." 

Perhaps  we  now  have  the  source  of  some  of  those 
telling  sentences  Webster  learned  to  use.  Nor  were 
the  hymns  he  memorized  from  Dr.  Watts  to  be  despised. 

44 


SILHOUETTE    OF    WEBSTER'S    MOTHER 


ORIGIN  AND  EDUCATION 

We  smile  at  the  good  old  doctor  nowadays,  especially 
for  that  one  among  his  hymns  for  children,  which 
begins, 

"Let  dogs  delight  to  bark  and  bite; 

For  God  hath  made  them  so. 
Let  bears  and  lions  growl  and  fight ; 
For  'tis  their  nature  too." 

But  surely  it  was  expressive.  Many  generations  of 
New  Englanders  were  brought  up  on  Dr.  Watts.  Much 
of  his  verse  is  full  of  beauty ;  and  much  of  it  has  the 
primitive  directness  of  expression.  For  example : 

"  Were  I  so  tall  to  reach  the  pole, 

Or  grasp  the  ocean  in  my  span, 
I  must  be  measured  by  my  soul, 
The  mind's  the  standard  of  the  man." 

The  New  Hampshire  boy  was  influenced  by  this, 
and  by  the  primitive  directness  of  the  Old  Testament;/ 
and  when  Sir  Walter  Scott's  poetry  began  to  appear, 
the  verse  Webster  loved  best  to  repeat,  his  secretary 
says,  was  one  of  this  same  primitive  directness  from  the 
"  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel." 

"  The  stag  hounds,  weary  with  the  chase, 

Lay  stretched  upon  the  rushy  floor, 
And  urged  in  dreams  the   forest  race, 
From  Teviot-stone  to  Eskdale  moor." 

(Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xiii,  p.  567.) 
&<*+ 

\  In  the  Webster  home  the  arrival  of  the  annual 
almanac,  with  its  quotations  of  poetry  and  prose,  its 
jokes,  superstitions  and  valuable  information  all  jum 
bled  together,  was  in  those  days  a  great  event  and 
supplied  the  place  of  our  newspapers  and  magazines. 
It  had  hardly  arrived  in  the  house  before  Daniel  and  his 
brother  Ezekiel  had  all  the  poetry  and  anecdotes  by 
It  was,  no  doubt,  all  good  discipline  and  a 

"Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xiii,  p.  578. 
45 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

great  help  in  the  end.  But  it  amounted  to  nothing^at 
Exeter,  where  Daniel  was  put  at  once  into  grammar 
and  arithmetic,  amidst  strange  surroundings,  well- 
dressed  boys,  and  manners  and  customs  that  bewildered 
him.  "  I  scarcely,"  he  says,  "  remained  master  of  my 
senses." 

He  really  got  on  very  well  in  his  studies,  but  from 
oversensitiveness  was  hardly  conscious  of  it  and  was  in 
clined  not  to  come  back  for  another  term,  had  not  the 
usher  kindly  urged  it  and  told  him  that  he  was  to  be 
promoted  into  the  next  clas^>  Strange  to  say,  he  was 
good  in  all  his  studies  except  declamation.  The  boy 
who  a  few  years  afterwards  became  famous  for  his 
supreme  confidence  before  an  audience,  was  so  bashful 
at  school  that  he  could  not  utter  a  word  from  the 
platform. 

"  The  kind  and  excellent  Buckminster  sought  especially 
to  persuade  me  to  perform  the  exercise  of  declamation  like 
other  boys,  but  I  could  not  do  it.  Many  a  piece  did  I  commit 
to  memory,  and  recite  and  rehearse  in  my  own  room  over 
and  over  again,  yet,  when  the  day  came,  when  the  school  col 
lected  to  hear  declamations,  when  my  name  was  called,  and 
I  saw  all  eyes  turned  to  my  seat,  I  could  not  raise  myself  from 
it.  Sometimes  the  instructors  frowned,  sometimes  they  smiled. 
Mr.  Buckminster  always  pressed  and  entreated,  most  win- 
ningly,  that  I  would  venture,  but  I  could  never  command  suffi 
cient  resolution.  When  the  occasion  was  over,  I  went  home 
and  wept  bitter  tears  of  mortification."  (Autobiography,  Cor 
respondence,  vol.  i,  p.  9.) 

It  was  no  doubt  the  remains  of  his  delicate  health 
and  the  intense  sensitiveness  that  so  often  accompanies 
youth  fulness  in  a  high-strung,  intelligent  animal.  V He 
remained  only  about  two  terms,  or  nine  months  alto 
gether,  at  Exeter,  when  his  father  took  him  home, 
and  he  taught  school,  it  is  said,  for  a  few  weeks  near 
his  father's  on  Searle,  or  Meeting  House  Hill,  in  a  room 
in  the  home  of  William  Webster,  his  uncle/1*  How 

"Dearborn,  History  of  Salisbury,  N.  H.,  p.  157;  Lyman, 
Memorials  of  Webster,  vol.  i,  pp.  211,  212. 

46 


ORIGIN  AND  EDUCATION 

many  prominent  New  Englanders  have  taken  a  fling 
at  teaching  school  in  their  youtfi.  In  this  instance, 
however^t  did  not  last  long ;  for*ne  soon  went  to  school 
himself  to  the  Rev.  Samuel  Wood  in  the  neighboring 
town  of  Boscawen.  On  the  drive  of  six  miles  to  Bos- 
cawen  to  live  at  the  home  of  Dr.  Wood,  Daniel's  father 
announced  to  him  that  he  intended  to  give  him  an  edu 
cation  at  Dartmouth  College.^ 

"  I  remember  the  very  hill  which  we  were  ascending, 
through  deep  snows,  in  a  New  England  sleigh,  when  my  father 
made  known  this  purpose  to  me.  I  could  not  speak.  How 
could  he,  I  thought,  with  so  large  a  family,  and  in  such  narrow 
circumstances,  think  of  incurring  so  great  an  expense  for  me? 
A  warm  glow  ran  all  over  me,  and  I  laid  my  head  on  my 
father's  shoulder  and  wept."  (Works,  Edition  1851,  vol.  i, 
p.  xxv.) 

A  college  education  has  always,  in  New  England, 
been  a  wonderful  thing,  even  in  modern  times;  and  in 
Wrebster's  day  it  seemed  to  open  up  the  whole  world; 
there  was  nothing  else  quite  equal  to  it.  Dr.  Wood  had 
apparently  been  chosen  as  a  quicker  and  less  expensive 
road  than  Exeter,  to  hurry  young  Daniel  to  the  New 
England  Mecca.  But  the  farm  had  to  be  mortgaged 
to  furnish  the  means.  It  was  an  old-time  instance  of 
what  we  now  call  "  cramming "  for  an  entrance  ex 
amination.  But  Webster  seems  to  have  gained  some 
culture  and  pleasure  from  it. 

"  Mr.  Wood  put  me  upon  Virgil  and  Tully,  and  I  conceived 
a  pleasure  in  the  study  of  them,  especially  the  latter,  which 
rendered  application  no  longer  a  task.  With  what  vehemence 
did  I  denounce  Catiline!  With  what  earnestness  struggle 
for  Milo!  In  the  spring  I  began  the  Greek  grammar,  and  at 
mid-summer  Mr.  Wood  said  to  me :  'I  expected  to  keep  you 
till  next  year,  but  I  am  tired  of  you,  and  I  shall  put  you  into 
college  next  month.'  And  so  indeed  he  did;  but  it  was  a 
mere  breaking  in;  I  was  indeed  miserably  prepared  both  in 
Latin  and  Greek;  but  Mr.  Wood  accomplished  his  purpose, 
and  I  entered  Dartmouth  College  as  a  freshman  August,  1797." 
(Autobiography,  Correspondence,  vol.  i,  p.  10.) 

47 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

So  Vie  was  in  the  rigid  old  classical  course,  which 
so  many  eminent  men  of  our  race  have  been  inspired 
by;  or  have  survived*) as  some  are  now  disposed  to 
think.  He  travelled  to  Hanover,  the  college  town  of 
Dartmouth,  on  horseback,  carrying  his  feather-bed  and 
bedding,  his  clothes,  books  and  provisions  for  the  jour 
ney  on  his  horse.  Was  it  not  after  all  a  good  whole 
some  way?  It  was  the  old  method  of  travel  in  New 
Hampshire,  when  wagons  were  few  and  expensive.  A 
man,  wife  and  child  with  provisions  were  frequently 
seen  all  on  the  same  horse.  The  early  settlers  had 
advanced  into  the  wilderness  in  that  way.  It  is  said 
that  when  Daniel  reached  Hanover  he  turned  his  horse 
out  to  pasture  and  had  him  to  ride  home  at  the  end  of 
the  term  in  November.17 

Uie  was  fifteen,  which  is  four  years  younger  than 
the  average  college  entrance  in  our  days.  He  became, 
in  the  end,  a  rather  good  Latin  scholar,  as  things  go  in 
America,  where  the  classics  have  never  been  taken  quite 
as  seriously  as  in  England.  He  had  a  natural  taste 
for  the  oratorical  dignity  of  the  Roman  language.  But 
in  Greek  his  attainments  were  much  less. 

He  continued  to  be  an  omnivorous  general  reader, 
a  reading  animal,  like  Lord  Macaulay.>  He  had  found 
a  copy  of  Don  Quixote  in  the  Bosc&wen  library.  "  I 
began  to  read  it,"  he  says,  "  and  it  is  literally  true,  that 
I  never  closed  my  eyes  until  I  had  finished  it.  Nor 
did  I  lay  it  down,  so  great  was  the  power  of  that 
extraordinary  book  on  my  imagination."  It  must  have 
been  soon  after  this  that  he  began  to  familiarize  him 
self  with  all  English  literature,  reading  much  of  it, 
no  doubt,  again  and  again  and  committing  great  parts 
of  it  to  memory  without  much  effort ;  for  the  language 
and  sentiments  of  the  best  authors  of  the  language, 
especially  Milton  and  Shakespeare,  became  a  part  of 
his  being.  "  They  sprang  into  his  discourse,"  says  his 

"Dearborn,  History  of  Salisbury,  p.  416. 
48 


ORIGIN  AND  EDUCATION 

literary  executor  and  biographer,  Mr.  Curtis,  "  some 
times  in  unbidden  and  unconscious  quotation,  and  some 
times  with  a  purposed  use  of  riches  which  he  had  stored 
in  one  of  the  most  retentive  memories  ever  possessed  | 
by  man." 

There  was  a  rule  of  the  college,  we  are  told,  that 
"  No  scholar  shall  speak  diminutively  of  the  practice 
of  labor,  under  penalty  of  being  obliged  to  perform  that 
which  he  endeavored  to  discredit."  18  Yet,*  in  spite  of 
this  and  his  heavy  and  exhaustive  labors  for  a  long  life 
time  at  the  bar,  in  the  Senate  and  as  Secretary  of  State, 
in  spite  of  his  early  rising  and  his  energy  in  farming, 
fishing  and  shooting,  many  of  Daniel's  biographers  in 
sist  that  he  was  an  indolent  man.>  It  is  rather  curious 
that  this  charge  should  have  been  so  persistently  con 
tinued;  and  it  probably  originated  in  Webster's  entire 
freedom  from  nervousness  and  from  the  bragging  about 
work  and  the  affectation  of  hustle  and  haste  which  our 
people  would  understand  the  ridiculousness  of  if  they 
could  once  stand  off  and  see  themselves.  He  was 
noticeably  deliberate,  even  solemn,  about  everything; 
imperturbable  on  all  occasions ;  with  a  thoughtful, 
dreamy  look  when  not  in  action ;  and  when  he  rested 
he  really  rested  and  relaxed  completely. 

There  was  no  printed  description  of  the  college 
course  as  there  is  now,  probably  for  the  very  good 
reason  that  it  was  so  simple  and  well  known  that  there 
was  no  necessity  for  printing  it.  In  1802,  the  year 
after  Webster  graduated,  a  broadside  was  issued  and 
continued  for  several  years ;  but  these  contain  nothing 
like  a  modern  description  of  the  course ;  they  give  only 
the  names  of  the  students  and  of  the  faculty.  For 
1802  the  President,  John  Wheelock,  was  Professor  of 
Ecclesiastical  History;  B.  W.  Woodward  was  Profes 
sor  of  Mathematics  and  Natural  Philosophy  ;  John  Smith 
was  Professor  of  Latin,  Greek,  Hebrew  and  other 

18  Webster  Centennial  at  Dartmouth,  1901,  p.  277. 
4  49 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

Oriental  Languages;  and  Nathan  Smith  was  Professor 
of  Chemistry  and  Medicine.  Besides  these,  there  were 
three  tutors,  as  they  were  called,  possibly  a  relic  of  the 
system  at  the  English  universities.  These  tutors  appa 
rently  filled  up  gaps  in  the  courses,  supplying  what  the 
professors  left  untouched.  Professor  Woodward  was 
also  a  trustee  and  treasurer  of  the  college,  judge  of  the 
county  court,  and  in  many  respects  it  is  said,  the  best 
of  the  professors.  That  was  all  there  was  of  the  col 
lege,  its  courses  and  faculty,  and  one  may  draw  his 
own  conclusions  and  compare  the  course  with  the  many 
pages  of  a  modern  one  that  is  considered  absolutely 
necessary  to  produce  the  modern  paragon  of  youthful 
excellence.19 

^There  was  a  college  society,  the  United  Fraternity, 
for  essays  and  debates^  It  was  like  the  similar  societies 
in  other  New  England  colleges  which  have  developed 
many  an  extemporaneous  speaker  besides  Daniel.  It 
must  be  remembered  that  these  boys  graduated  from 
this  now  much  ridiculed  old  curriculum  at  nineteen,  the 
average  age  now  of  entering;  and  yet  when  we  read 
the  letters  of  Daniel  and  his  friends  in  the  first  years 
after  graduation,  collected  in  his  works,  they  seem  in 
ability  to  use  the  English  language  by  no  means  inferior 
to  the  compositions  of  the  distinguished  gentlemen  of 
modern  education  who  celebrated  the  Webster  Centen 
nial  at  Dartmouth  in  1901. 

In  the  spring  of  his  Sophomore  year,  when  Daniel 
returned  home  for  the  vacation  in  May,  it  was  resolved 
that  his  elder  brother,  Ezekiel,  should  be  sent  to  school 
and  college.  The  farm  was  already  mortgaged  for 
Daniel's  education,  but  the  mother  and  sisters  seem 
to  have  had  no  hesitation  in  assenting  to  another  col 
lege  education  which  would  sweep  away  all  the  accumu 
lated  property  of  the  family  and  leave  them  dependent 
in  the  end  on  the  earnings  of  Ezekiel  and  Daniel.  So 

"Webster  Centennial  at  Dartmouth,  p.  26. 
50 


I 


TICKNOR'S   SKETCH  OF  DARTMOUTH  COLLEGE   IN  1803 


ORIGIN  AND  EDUCATION 

Ezekiel,  too,  joined  the  New  England  aristocracy  of 
education.  He  was  of  dark  hair  and  complexion  like 
the  father  and  Daniel ;  very  handsome ;  and  famous  all 
his  life  in  New  Hampshire  for  his  good  looks.  His 
ability  was  of  the  solid,  conservative  order,  equal,  as 
some  supposed,  to  Daniel's,  and  he  became  a  prominent 
citizen  of  New  Hampshire,  an  important  man  in  poli 
tics,  a  member  for  many  years  of  one  or  the  other 
branch  of  the  Legislature,  and  a  much  sought  legal 
adviser.  But  he  had,  it  seems,  none  of  the  brilliancy 
or  quickness  of  apprehension  of  his  distinguished 
brother,  and  died  suddenly  while  speaking  in  the  court 
room  at  Concord,  at  the  age  of  forty-nine. 
<Daniel  was  now  earning  a  little  money  by  helping  to 

.  edit  in  the  town  a  small  weekly  paper,  The  Dartmouth 
Gazette,  and  teaching  school  in  vacation  tim(£>  It  was 
the  familiar  instance,  which  those  of  us  who  have  been 

^ducated  in  New  England  have  often  seen,  of  a  boy 
working  his  way  through  college.  There  was  nothing 
particularly  wonderful  about  it  in  Webster's  case,  nor 
was  the  hardship  excessive.  Such  boys  have  their 
pleasures  in  life;  possibly  more  pleasures  than  their 
supposed  betters.  In  fact,  their  thrifty,  economical 
struggle,  is  in  itself  a  pleasure,  and  in  itself  an  educa 
tion  of  no  small  value.  Daniel  at  times  had  money 
enough  to  help  Ezekiel,  and  before  long  Ezekiel,  in  his 
turn,  could  help  Daniel. 

Many  efforts  have  been  made  to  collect  from  Daniel's 
contemporaries  the  sort  of  boy  he  was  in  college.  But 
most  of  these  reminiscences,  having  been  written  after 
he  became  famous,  are  from  that  point  of  view,  and 
mere  platitudes  of  excellence.  "  All  his  exercises,"  we 
are  told,  "  in  his  whole  collegiate  course  improved  in 
excellence  as  time  advanced."  He  always  went  to 
church  and  never  smiled  in  church.  He  was  dignified, 
constant,  well  prepared,  industrious ;  he  even  knew  more 
than  his  teachers ;  he  was  popular  with  his  companions 
and  "  instructive  to  them  in  conversation " ;  he  was, 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

"  pleasant  without  ostentation ;  "  it  was  impossible  to 
think  of  an  impropriety  of  conduct  in  connection  with 
his  name.  Good  Heavens,  what  a  little  wonder  he 
must  have  been ! 

^^  *N 

Fortunately,  however,  ihis  room-mate  Loveland',  who 
lived  to  a  great  age,  was  caught  in  a  hay-field  one  sum 
mer  day,  and  sitting  down  close  to  God  and  nature,  he 
Described  his  old  friend,  Black  Dan^  in  language  which 
we  can  understand.  <He  was  ambitious,  he  said,  took 
every  opportunity  to  make  himself  conspicuous,  "  was 
rather  bombastic  and  always  ready  for  a  speech."  He 
was  "  not  very  popular  with  his  class,  owing  to  his  be 
ing  so  independent  and  assuming."  He  "  would  ap 
pear  rather  stuffy  if  things  did  not  go  to  suit  him,"  and 
on  one  such  occasion  in  a  college  debate  got  up  and  left 
the  room.  "  Dan  was  rough  and  awkward,  very  decid 
edly,  and  I  sometimes  doubted  whether  he  wou 
succeed  in  life  on  that  account."  There  was  "  som 
thing  rather  assuming  and  pompous  in  his  bearing  as 
well  as  in  his  style."  But  there  was  no  doubt  of  his 
natural  ability ;  his  companions  all  recognized  that  he 
was  very  quick,  ready  at  public  speaking,  and  he  "  ob 
served  things  remarkably  and  was  quick  to  see  their 
bearings."  He  read  a  great  deal  and  was  a  "  good; 
though  not  a  very  accurate,  scholar."  20  s 

He  used  to  go  home  with  Loveland  sometimes  on 
Saturdays  to  hunt,  and  was  a  bad  shot.  He  would 
put  his  feet  on  the  fine  soapstone  round  the  fireplace 
so  carelessly  that  Loveland's  grandmother  said  he  must 
not  bring  that  boy  home  any  more  if  he  was  going  to 
scratch  her  Orford  soapstoner  Loveland  appears  to 
have  taken  the  Abolitionist  point  of  view  and  disap 
proved  of  Webster's  political  course;  but  no  doubt  he 
gives  us  a  true  glimpse  of  Black  Dan.  He  was  so.  dark 
that— wh£n._lifi_. first  arrived  at  Dartmouth  someone 
thought  he  was  an  Indian  coming  to  the  Moor  Charity 
^School. 

30  Webster   Centennial   at  Dartmouth,  p.  42. 
52 


II 

METHODS    AND    CHARACTER    OF    HIS    ELOQUENCE 

TOWARDS  the  end  of  his  college  course  Daniel's 
natural  talent  for  public  speaking  began  to  show  itself 
so  conspicuously  that  the  citizens  of  Hanover,  the 
college  town  of  Dartmouth,  asked  him  to  deliver  the 
oration  for  the  Fourth  of  July,  1800.  He  was  then 
only  eighteen  years  old  and  his  oration,  as  a  whole, 
seems  even  now  a  good  one  for  a  boy  of  that  age,  but, 
of  course,  is  a  boyish  imitation  of  the  bad  taste  of  the 
time. 

"  Scattered  in  detachments,"  he  says  of  the  early  colo- 
^nists,  "along  a  coast  immensely  extensive,  at  a  remove  of  more 
than  three  thousand  miles  from  their  friends  on  the  eastern 
continent,  they  were  exposed  to  all  those  evils  and  endured 
all  those  difficulties  to  which  human  nature  seems  liable.  Des 
titute  of  convenient  habitations,  the  inclemencies  of  the  seasons 
attacked  them,  the  midnight  beasts  of  prey  prowled  terribly 
around  them,  and  the  more  portentous  yell  of  savage  fury 
incessantly  assailed  them."  (Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xv, 
p.  476.) 

The  first  sentence  of  the  above  is  well  enough;  but 
:  in  the  last  sentence  he  is  verging  towards  the  extrava 
gant  tone  of  the  day.     A  little  farther  on  he  describes 
the  Revolution ;   "  and  America,"   he   says,   "  manfully 
springing  from  the  torturing  fangs  of  the  British  Lion, 
now  rises  majestic  in  the,  pride  of  her  sovereignty  and 
bids  her  eagle  elevate  his  wings."     That  was  a  trifle 
splurgy ;  and  there  was  more  about  the  Mississippi  and 
!  the  Alleghanies,  and  the  manifest  inferiority  of  Europe, 
which,  coming  from  a  boy,  was  right  enough,  and  one 
would  naturally  applaud.     Our  own  boys  graduating 
at  twenty-three  with  all  the  advantages  of  a  modern 
I  curriculum   are   not   much   better   than   this   junior   of 
eighteen. 

53 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

It  has  sometimes  been  thought  that  such  extracts 
as  these  had  better  not  be  published,  because  they  might 
detract  from  the  fame  to  which  the  great  orator  after 
wards  attained.  He  himself  had  a  half  humorous  feel 
ing  of  this  sort ;  and  when  Mr.  Ticknor  once  reminded 
him  at  a  dinner  party  that  he  had  a  printed  copy  of  an 
oration  Webster  had  .delivered  when  a  senior  on  the 
death  of  a  classmate,  Webster  turned  sternly  towards 
him  and  said: 

"  Have  you  ?  I  thought  till  lately  that  as  only  a  few  copies 
of  it  were  printed,  they  must  all  have  been  destroyed  long  ago ; 
but  the  other  day  Bean,  who  was  in  college  with  me,  told 
me  he  had  one.  It  flashed  through  my  mind  that  it  must  have 
been  the  last  copy  in  the  world,  and  that  if  he  had  it  in  his 
pocket  it  would  be  worth  while  to  kill  him  to  destroy  it  from 
the  face  of  the  earth.  So  I  recommend  you  not  to  bring  your 
copy  where  I  am."  (Curtis,  vol.  i,  p.  40,  note.) 

That  funeral  oration  has  been  found  and  is  now 
included  in  the  National  Edition  of  his  Works.  It  is 
certainly  a  dreadful  piece  of  artificial  splurginess,  from 
which  Webster  in  later  life  very  naturally  shrank. 
But  he  was  by  no  means  at  his  best  in  funeral  orations ; 
and  the  one  he  delivered  many  years  afterwards  over 
his  old  friend  Judge  Story,  reminds  us  in  places  very 
unpleasantly  of  the  college  performance.  His  reputa 
tion,  however,  is  safe  enough,  and  if  there  is  any  use 
at  all  in  a  biography,  it  should  show  his  growth  from 
mediocrity  to  distinction.  He  himself  detested  the  bad 
taste  of  his  early  performances,  and  in  his  autobiogra 
phy  frankly  says  that  he  had  not  then  learned  the  true 
art  of  expression.  Without  directly  blaming  his  alma 
mater  he  gives  us  to  understand  that  rhetoric  was  very 
badly  taught ;  for  he  says  his  error  was  one  "  into 
which  the  Ars  Rhetorica,  as  it  is  usually  taught,  may 
easily  lead  stronger  heads  than  mine/' 

The  teaching  in  oratory  was  defective  in  all  Ameri 
can  colleges  and  the  popular  taste  was  as  bad  if  not 
worse.  The  development  of  our  love  of  spread  eagle 

54 


ELOQUENCE 

eloquence  in  that  century  until  it  reached  a  degree  of 
extravagance,  bombast  and  turgidity  never  known  be 
fore  in  the  world,  is  a  curious  history.  In  colonial 
times  we  find  little  or  none  of  it.  It  is  sometimes  sup 
posed  to  have  been  started  by  a  similar  bombastic  ora 
tory  among  the  leaders  of  the  French  Revolution;  or 
it  may  have  begun  in  our  own  Revolution,  and  may 
have  originated  in  a  desire  to  imitate  Patrick  Henry's 
enthusiastic  defiance,  the  imaginative  flights  of  Burke, 
or  the  vigor  and  beauty  of  Lord  Chatham.  These  ora 
tors  all  spoke  so  strongly  for  the  cause  of  American 
rights  that  our  people  worshipped  them,  and  every 
generation  of  schoolboys  recited  passages  from  their 
speeches.  But  all  mere  imitations  <^f  great  orators  end 
in  turgidity.  They  cannot  be  imitated.  If  they  could 
they  would  not  stand  alone;  there  would  be  hundreds 
like  them. 

The  high  excitement  of  the  Revolution,  however, 
and  the  necessity  for  violent  appeals  to  passion  and 
patriotism,  very  naturally  led  us  into  this  imitative 
screeching.  It  has  invaded  our  life  to  an  extraordi 
nary  degree;  its  influence  on  the  masses  has  been  enor 
mous  and  injurious ;  they  learned  to  worship  and  rely 
upon  it  to  the  verge  of  infatuation.  In  its  excessive 
development  by  American  keenness  and  energy  it  has 
been  used  to  lead  the  people  into  cheap  money  crazes; 
to  befog  their  understanding  with  impossible  ideas  and 
tawdry  sentimentalism,  and  leave  them  a  prey  to  the 
corruption  of  capitalists  and  monopolies.  It  has  been 
used  in  the  courts  to  increase  and  confuse  litigation 
and  acquit  the  most  guilty  criminals  until  litigation  in 
America  requires  more  judges  and  money  to  carry  it 
on  than  in  any  other  country  in  the  world;  and  there 
are  more  murders  and  fewer  convictions  for  murder 
in  proportion  to  population  than  anywhere  else  in  civi 
lization. 

It  is  remarkable  that  although  Webster's  youth 
came  within  the  full  influence  of  this  degenerating  craze, 

55 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

he  nevertheless,  of  his  own  accord,  worked  himself 
out  of  it  into  the  truer  method.  It  was  a  hard  struggle, 
he  had  frequent  lapses ;  progress  was  slow ;  and  it  was 
years  before  he  trained  himself  to  the  style  of  his 
best  speeches.  But  he  was  always  progressing;  and 
the  last  great  speech  of  his  life  was  the  farthest  re 
moved  from  the  old  method.  The  difference  between 
him  and  others  was  that  they  remained  stolidly  in  the 
old  influence  all  their  lives,  while  he  was  always  moving 
away  from  it. 

He  worked  as  hard  to  perfect  himself  in  language 
as  Demosthenes,  who  used  to  put  pebbles  in  his  mouth 
and  try  to  correct  his  stuttering  by  speaking  above  the 
roar  of  the  sea.  1"  My  style,"  Webster  said,  "  was 
not  formed  without  great  care  and  earnest  study  of 
the  best  authors.  I  labored  hard  upon  it,  for  I  early 
felt  the  importance  of  expression  to  thought.  I  have 
rewritten  sentence  after  sentence,  and  pondered  long 
upon  each  alteration.  For  depend  upon  it  it  is  with 
our  thoughts  as  with  our  persons — their  intrinsic  value 
is  mostly  undervalued,  unless  outwardly  expressed  in 
an  attractive  garb." 

!  fte  was  an  untiring  student  of  the  Old  Testament, 
never  wearied  of  its  poetry,  and  it,  like  Milton,  un 
doubtedly  increased  the  vivid  terseness  to  which  his 
style  sometimes  attained.^  "  Longinus,"  he  says,  "  tells 
us  that  the  most  sublime  passage  to  be  found  in  any 
language  is  this,  in  the  Bible :  '  Let  there  be  light,  and 
there  was  light :  '  the  greatest  effort  of  power  in  the 
tersest  and  fewest  words — the  command  and  the  record 
one  exertion  of  thought.  So  should  we  all  aim  to  ex 
press  things  in  words."  The  most  casual  reading  of 
his  speeches  shows  this  constant  effort  to  express  every 
thing  concretely;  to  let  the  words  represent  things  and 
not  abstractions  or  generalities;  the  same  idea  so  well 
laid  down  in  excellent  old  Archbishop  Whateley's 
Rhetoric,  a  book  which  Webster  mentions  in  a  letter  in 

56 


ELOQUENCE 

which  he  discourses  in  a  very  interesting  way  on  the 
best  methods  of  writing.1 

Webster's  mind  and  memory  evidently  worked  en 
tirely  by  the  picture  method.  His  knowledge  was  all 
pictured  concretely  in  actual  scenes,  usually  from  nature. 
One  sees  this  constantly  in  reading  his  speeches.  He 
seems  to  be  walking  among  these  scenes  and  fields 
of  his  memory  and  picking  up  the  information  which 
he  describes  from  its  locality.  He  refers  to  this  him 
self  when  he  says  that  he  had  no  difficulty  in  the  Reply 
'to  Hayne,  because  all  that  he  had  ever  known  seemed 
laid  out  before  him. 

His  sentences  are  usually  very  perfect  specimens  of 
construction,  as  anyone  can  test  for  himself,  by  trying 
to  alter  or  improve  some  of  the  numerous  ones  quoted 
in  this  book.  The  beginning  of  one  of  them,  even  the 
shortest,  has  usually  a  very  distinctive  way  of  leading 
logically  on  to  the  end  of  itself.  They  are  all  close 
coupled;  each  thought  connects  directly  with  its  prede 
cessor;  there  are  no  obscure  backward  references; 
the  meaning  is  full ;  and  as  in  all  perfectly  formed 
sentences  the  meaning  is  not  complete  until  the  last 
word  is  reached.  One  of  his  sentences  from  the  Ash- 
burton  diplomatic  documents  may  be  given  as  a  fine 
instance  of  close-coupled  condensation  of  a  famous 
principle  in  very  few  words :  "  In  every  regularly  docu 
mented  American  merchant  vessel,  the  crew  who  navi 
gate  it  will  find  their  protection  in  the  flag  that  is  over 
them."  2 

His  choice  of  words,  the  delicate  shades  of  meaning 
by  which  he  would  advance  or  enlarge  a  thought,  making 
it  clearer  at  every  step  to  even  ordinary  minds,  was  no 
doubt  the  result  of  endless  pains,  as  he  himself  said; 
but  it  was  also  where  his  genius  lay.  No  mere  talent 
or  industry  could  attain  such  skill.  He  was  very  fond, 

1  Private  Correspondence,  vol.  i,  p.  463. 

2  Works,  Edition  1851,  vol.  v,  p.  146. 

57 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

his  secretary  says,  of  buying  dictionaries  and  had  an 
immense  collection  of  them,  almost  all  that  were  known. 
It  may  be  that,  like  some  of  the  English  parliamentary 
orators,  he  kept  reading  these  dictionaries  over  and  over 
to  increase  his  vocabulary  and  train  his  mind  to  various 
distinctions  and  meanings.  Chatham,  as  we  are  told  by 
Lord  Rosebery,  had  read  through  Bailey's  dictionary 
several  times. 

Webster  would  apparently  in  unimportant  speeches 
practice  himself  in  this  study  of  synonyms ;  and  Sena 
tor  Hoar,  in  his  autobiography,  mentions  an  instance  in 
which  he  saw  him  at  the  process.  He  would  in  a  rather 
tiresome  way  use  a  great  many  words  to  describe  one 
idea,  as  in  giving  a  reason  for  the  population  of  Bos 
ton  he  said,  "  Is  it  not  because  we  have  here  a  suffi 
cient,  ample,  safe,  secure,  convenient,  commodious  port* 
harbor,  haven  ?  "  In  an  important  speech  these  would 
have  been  sorted  down  to  two  or  three ;  and  in  his 
highly  finished  speeches  three  or  four  synonyms  are 
often  used  with  most  telling  effect,  each  one  advancing 
the  thought  by  a  delicate  shade  that  captivates  the 
rnind.  This  was  difficult  and  high  art.  But  he  had 
evidently  found  that  nothing  was  more  effective  in 
persuading  and  convincing. 

The  structure  of  his  sentences  and  choice  of  words, 
as  finally  matured,  were  peculiar  to  himself,  as  were 
also  his  tones  of  voice  and  emphasis.  The  elocution 
ists  could  never  fully  understand  him.  He  seemed  to 
"  load  words  with  fourfold  their  meaning  and  power  " ; 
and  he  could  give  the  simplest  and  humblest  word  a  new 
forcefulness.  There  was  a  dispute  as  to  how  he  empha 
sized  a  very  impressive  sentence  in  the  White  murder 
trial,  "  Ah,  gentlemen,  that  was  a  dreadful  mistake ; " 
whether  the  stress  was  on  dreadful  or  on  mistake.  But 
one  who  had  been  at  the  trial  and  heard  him  said  that 
he  pronounced  both  words  alike. 

All  this  was  Websterian,  as  we  now  say ;  unlike  the 
style  of  anyone  else,  and  no  one  can  successfully  imi- 

58 


ELOQUENCE 

tate  it.  His  methods  are  almost  equally  difficult  to 
describe;  although  it  is  easy  to  pile  up  exciting  adjec 
tives  about  them.  They  are  best  known  by  examples. 
One  of  his  most  conspicuous  qualities  was  his  correct 
ear;  the  harmony,  the  musical  beauty,  of  his  sentences, 
which  the  reader  can  test  for  himself.  They  are  simj 
ply  inimitable ;  all  the  analysis  in  the  world  will  not 
enable  you  to  see  exactly  how  he  does  it.  He  was 
skilful  in  the  repetition  of  an  important  idea  or  prin 
ciple  in  various  forms  and  with  abundance  of  illustra 
tion,  so  artfully  done  that  his  hearer  is  unconscious  of 
the  repetition  and  is  led  charmed  from  illustration  to 
illustration  until  the  idea  is  driven  home  and  he  is 
convinced.  This,  like  his  use  of  synonyms,  has  been 
the  method  of  many  famous  orators,  and  Webster  found 
it  peculiarly  well  suited  to  his  subject  matter,  especially 
his  constitutional  arguments.  But  his  illustrations 
were  never  far-fetched  or  curious.  They  were  some 
what  lacking,  it  has  been  thought,  in  ingenuity  of  in 
vention.  But  they  were  in  good  taste;  they  always 
seemed  to  belong  to  the  subject;  they  conformed  to  his  , 
severe,  you  might  almost  say  austere,  classic  taste,  j 
His  argument  usually  rested  on  only  a  few  strong 
points.  In  analyzing  one  of  his  speeches  you  are 
usually  surprised  to  find  how  few  these  points  are ; 
and  then  you  begin  to  see  how  they  have  been  driven 
home,  demonstrated,  burnt  into  the  minds  of  his  hearers. 
This  may  have  been  the  reason  why  his  notes  were 
always  so  brief.  His  own  final  analysis  of  one  of  his 
long  speeches  would  all  be  contained  in  a  few  hints 
on  a  small  sheet  of  paper. 

In  the  latter  part  of  his  life,  Parton  says,  he  some 
times  delivered  speeches  which  were  mere  empty  pom- 
^pousness  and  posing,  and  this,  though  the  testimony 
of  an  enemy,  is  no  doubt  true.  He  was  called  upon 
to  speak  a  great  deal,  and  delivered  an  immense  num 
ber  of  speeches,  in  only  some  of  which  he  could  bring 
his  literary  ability  into  effective  play.  These  he  tried 

59 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

to  preserve  in  permanent  form  and  encouraged  the 
others  to  die.  He  had  the  fault,  at  times,  of  overwork 
ing  himself  and  then,  of  course,  went  stale.  The  mill 
merely  ground  on  itself.  He  still  had  his  actor's  ability ; 
he  could  go  through  the  motions ;  but  there  was  no  real 
character  for  him  to  take. 

His  unusual  deliberateness  of  manner,  a  natural  trait 
which  he  had  even  as  a  boy,  added  greatly  to  the 
impressiveness  of  his  oratory.  But  in  his  old  age  he 
carried  it  to  an  extreme,  and  it  became  a  serious  fault. 
Senator  Hoar,  in  his  autobiography,  and  G.  W.  Julian, 
in  his  Political  Recollections,  both  writing  of  about  the  * 
year  1850,  mention  this  fault  as  very  pronounced,  and 
his  pauses  between  words  as  very  long,  apparently  the 
result  of  his  age  and  failing  health. 

It  has  been  usual  to  assume  that  his  eloquence, 
though  superior  to  anything  of  the  sort  in  America,  is 
not  to  be  compared  with  that  of  the  greatest  orators: 
Demosthenes,  Cicero,  Burke,  and  Chatham,  or  even 
Erskine,  Fox,  and  Macaulay.  Mr.  Evarts,  in  his  speech 
at  the  unveiling  of  the  Burnham  Statue  in  New  York 
in  1876,  accepted  this  as  Webster's  position  in  the 
world.  But  others  have  thought  differently,  and  Web 
ster's  eloquence  improves  with  time.  Senator  Lodge 
quotes  Francis  Lieber,  a  well-known  political  writer  in 
the  period  before  the  Civil  War,  who  compared  Web 
ster  rather  favorably  with  Demosthenes.  "  I  read,"  he 
said,  "  a  portion  of  my  favorite  speeches  of  Demos 
thenes,  and  then  read,  always  aloud,  parts  of  Webster; 
then  returned  to  the  Athenian;  and  Webster  stood  the 
test."  3 

It  would  be  interesting  if  he  had  told  us  with  which 
of  Webster's  speeches  he  had  made  the  test.     One  of    </ 
Webster's  strong  points  was  his  use  of  short  sentences ;  r 


8  The  index  of  Lieber's  "  Life  and  Letters  "  does  not  en 
able  one  to  find  this  passage  which  Senator  Lodge  quotes 
without  reference  in  his  Life  of  Webster,  p.  187. 

60 


ELOQUENCE 

or,  if  you  choose,  he  was  strongest  when  he  used 
short  sentences ;  for  he  varied  a  good  deal  in  this  re 
spect.  When  he  was  at  his  best,  most  impassioned, 
those  quick,  short  condensations  of  emotion  come  like 
rifle  bullets.  This  is  particularly  noticeable  in  the 
speech  in  the  White  murder  trial ;  and  it  is  probably  in 
that  and  similar  passages  that  he  comes  nearest  to  the 
classic  Greek. 

Comparing  him  with  Burke  we  find  the  same  lofty 
tone  in  each,  the  unmistakable  tone  of  distinction, 
Few,  if  any,  orators  except  Chatham  have  been  able 
to  equal  them  in  this;  and  perhaps  Chatham  now  and 
then  goes  beyond  them.  But  in  Burke  that  tone  be 
comes  very  monotonous  and  often  flags.  Burke's 
speeches  are  of  prodigious  length  and  tediousness;  and 
w,hile  the  tone  may  be  often  kept  up  with  formal  cor- 
rictness,  there  is  little  or  none  of  Webster's  humor, 
powerful  reasoning,  or  illustrations  from  nature  to 
vary  it. 

Burke  is  a  wonderful  phrase  maker;  but  his  phrase 
making  is  usually  scholastic  and  indoors.  Curiously 
enough,  as  showing  what  literary  power  these  illustra 
tions  from  nature  have,  the  most  frequently  quoted 
passage  from  Burke  is  one  of  the  very  few  in  which 
he  was  able  to  draw  strongly  upon  nature.  He  was 
describing  the  vigor  of  the  New  England  colonists  and 
their  enterprise  in  navigation  and  whale  fishing;  their 
adventures  among  the  tumbling  mountains  of  ice  and 
the  frozen  recesses  of  Hudson's  Bay ;  and  "  whilst  we 
are  looking  for  them  beneath  the  Arctic  circle,  we  hear 
that  they  have  pierced  into  the  opposite  region  of  polar 
cold,  that  they  are  at  the  antipodes  and  engaged  under 
the  frozen  serpent  of  the  south.  No  sea  but  what  is 
vexed  with  their  fisheries.  No  climate  that  is  not  wit 
ness  to  their  toils ;  neither  the  perseverance  of  Hol 
land,  nor  the  activity  of  France,  nor  the  dexterous  and 
firm  sagacity  of  English  enterprise  ever  carried  this 
most  perilous  mode  of  hardy  industry  to  the  extent 

61 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

to  which  it  has  been  pushed  by  this  recent  people;  a 
people  who  are  still,  as  it  were,  but  in  the  gristle  and 
not  yet  hardened  into  the  bone  of  manhood." 

The  whole  passage  is  fine;  and  the  passage  from 
Webster  one  is  inclined  to  pit  against  it  is  the  close 
of  his  famous  description  of  the  struggle  of  the  Ameri 
can  colonists  against  the  British  Empire : 

"  On  this  question  of  principle,  while  actual  suffering  was 
yet  afar  off,  they  raised  their  flag  against  a  power,  to  which, 
for  purposes  of  foreign  conquest  and  subjugation,  Rome  in  the 
height  of  her  glory  is  not  to  be  compared;  a  power  which  has 
dotted  over  the  surface  of  the  globe  with  her  possessions  and 
military  posts,  whose  morning  drum  beat,  following  the  sun 
and  keeping  company  with  the  hours,  circles  the  earth  with  one 
continuous  and  unbroken  strain  of  the  martial  airs  of 
England." 

A  large  part  of  Burke's  fame  rests  on  his  philo 
sophical  essays,  the  famous  one  on  the  Sublime  and 
Beautiful,  his  Reflections  on  the  French  Revolution,  and 
numerous  letters  and  addresses.  In  these  are  many 
instances  of  genius  in  the  use  of  language,  of  the  scho 
lastic  kind  and  of  strong  literary  merit  and  profound 
thought,  which  have  become  part  of  the  treasure  of 
the  world.  In  this  field,  Webster,  who  wrote  no  philo 
sophical  essays,  does  not  compete  with  him.  We  are 
comparing  the  two  men  only  as  orators  and  parliamen 
tary  debaters. 

It  was  a  defect  in  Burke  that  he  let  this  philosophical 
essay  habit  intrude  into  his  speeches  and  spoiled  a  large 
part  of  both  their  immediate  and  permanent  effect. 
From  certain  well-known  passages  of  "  imperial  fancy  " 
and  commanding  eloquence  he  sinks  rapidly  to  the  com 
monplace.  \EIe  had  very  little  of  that  perfect  control 
of  his  audience  that  Webster  had  from  the  beginning 
to  the  end  of  almost  every  speech  he  ever  made.  Burke 
was  very  defective  with  his  audience.'  "  He  spoke," 
his  biographer  says,  "  with  an  Irish  accent,  with  awk 
ward  action  and  in  a  harsh  tone." 

62 


ELOQUENCE 

"  His  power  over  the  house  did  not  last ;  his  thoughts  were 
too  deep  for  the  greater  part  of  the  members,  and  were  rather 
exhaustive  discussions  than  direct  contributions  to  debate, 
while  the  sustained  loftiness  of  his  style  and  a  certain  lack 
of  sympathy  with  his  audience,  marred  the  effect  of  his 
oratory.  His  temper  was  naturally  hasty  and  he  was  deficient 
in  political  tact."  (Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  vol.  vii, 
p.  348.) 

In  all  these  points  Webster  was  far  his  superior. 
In  Burke's  interminably  long  and  wearisome  speeches  in 
the  impeachment  of  Warren  Hastings,  in  those  vast 
masses  of  evidence  of  corruption,  bribery,  extortion  and 
cruelty  in  India,  he  had  numerous  opportunities  to  dis 
play  his  powers  of  sarcasm,  but  he  appears  to  have  used 
them  scarcely  as  well  and  not  as  humorously  as  Web 
ster  used  his  more  limited  chances.  Burke's  briefest 
famous  speech,  one  that  in  brevity  approaches  nearest  to 
Webster's  longest,  and  one  that  has  always  been  put 
forward  as  remarkable,  was  on  the  Nabob  of  Arcot's 
Debts ;  and  it  may  be  well  to  compare  the  opening  para 
graph  of  it  with  the  opening  of  Webster's  7th  of  March 
speech  in  the  Senate. 

"  The  times  we  live  in,  Mr.  Speaker,  have  been  distin 
guished  by  extraordinary  events.  Habituated,  as  we  are,  to 
uncommon  combinations  of  men  and  of  affairs,  I  believe  nobody 
recollects  anything  more  surprising  than  the  spectacle  of  this 
day.  The  right  honorable  gentleman,  whose  conduct  is  now 
in  question,  formerly  stood  forth  in  this  house,  the  prosecutor 
of  the  worthy  baronet  who  spoke  after  him.  He  charged  him 
with  several  grievous  acts  of  malversation  in  office ;  with  abuses 
of  a  public  trust  of  a  great  and  heinous  nature.  In  less  than 
two  years  we  see  the  situation  of  the  parties  reversed;  and  a 
singular  revolution  puts  the  worthy  baronet  in  a  fair  way  of 
returning  the  prosecution  in  a  recriminatory  bill  of  pains  and 
penalties,  grounded  on  a  breach  of  public  trust,  relative  to 
the  government  of  the  very  same  part  of  India.  If  he  should 
undertake  a  bill  of  that  kind,  he  will  find  no  difficulty  in 
conducting  it  with  a  degree  of  skill  and  vigor  fully  equal  to 
all  that  have  been  exerted  against  him."  (Burke,  Works, 
Bohn  Edition  of  1860,  vol.  iii,  p.  122.) 

"  Mr.  President :  I  wish  to  speak  to-day,  not  as  a  Massa 
chusetts  man,  nor  as  a  northern  man,  but  as  an  American,  and 

63 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

a  member  of  the  Senate  of  the  United  States.  It  is  fortunate 
that  there  is  a  Senate  of  the  United  States;  a  body  not  yet 
moved  from  its  propriety,  not  lost  to  a  just  sense  of  its  own 
dignity  and  its  own  high  responsibilities,  and  a  body  to  which 
the  country  looks  with  confidence,  for  wise,  moderate,  patriotic, 
and  healing  counsels.  It  is  not  to  be  denied  that  we  live 
in  the  midst  of  strong  agitations,  and  are  surrounded  by  very 
considerable  dangers  to  our  institutions  and  government.  The 
imprisoned  winds  are  let  loose.  The  East,  the  North,  and  the 
stormy  South  combine  to  throw  the  whole  sea  into  commotion, 
to  toss  its  billows  to  the  skies  and  disclose  its  profoundest 
depths.  I  do  not  affect  to  regard  myself,  Mr.  President,  as 
holding,  or  as  fit  to  hold,  the  helm  in  this  combat  with  the 
political  elements ;  but  I  have  a  duty  to  perform,  and  I  mean 
to  perform  it  with  fidelity,  not  without  a  sense  of  existing 
dangers,  but  not  without  hope.  I  have  a  part  to  act,  not  for 
my  own  security  or  safety,  for  I  am  looking  out  for  no  frag 
ment  upon  which  to  float  away  from  the  wreck,  if  wreck  there 
must  be,  but  for  the  good  of  the  whole,  and  the  preservation 
of  all ;  and  there  is  that  which  will  keep  me  to  my  duty  during 
this  struggle,  whether  the  sun  and  the  stars  shall  appear  or 
shall  not  appear  for  many  days.  I  speak  to-day  for  the  pres 
ervation  of  the  Union.  'Hear  me  for  my  cau'se.'  " 

This  passage  from  Webster  is  an  instance  of  a 
quality  which  has  been  aptly  called  "  stately  pathos." 
Few  orators  have  excelled  him  in  it,  and  it  was  a  quality 
which  he  and  Chatham  had  in  common. 

Erskine's  fame  rests  on  a  few  speeches  he  made  as 
a  barrister  in  some  libel  and  treason  cases,  and  in  his 
unsuccessful  defense  of  Thomas  Paine.  Good  orations 
they  are,  in  pure  taste,  to  the  point  and  with  no  strained 
ornamentation ;  but  they  lack  the  imagination,  the  wide 
range  of  thought,  the  broad  appeals,  and  the  reason 
ing  power  of  Webster.  Erskine  "  never  succeeded  in 
the  House  of  Commons  or  caught  its  tone."  In  fact, 
he  is  described  as  breaking  down  in  a  speech  in  Parlia 
ment,  unable  to  go  on,  and  for  years  after  seldom 
speaking.4 

With    Lord ,  Chatham,    the    great    commoner,    the 

4  Dictionary  of  Nat.  Biography,  vol.  xvii,  p.  438. 
64 


ELOQUENCE 

statesman  and  Parliamentary  leader,  who  conducted 
the  war  that  wrested  Canada  from  France,  and  laid 
the  foundations  of  the  modern  British  empire,  the  com 
parison  is  quite  different.  The  most  eminent  figure  in 
English  politics  in  the  eighteenth  century,  he  has  been  ^ 
described  as  "  the  first  Englishman  of  his  time  and 
he  had  made  England  the  first  country  of  the  world." 
He  has  usually  been  ranked  with  the  greatest  orators 
of  all  times.  He  was  all  orator.  Tall,  imposing;  in 
grace  and  dignity  of  gesture  not  inferior  to  Garrick; 
his  voice  full  and  clear ;  "  his  lowest  whisper  was  dis 
tinctly  heard;  his  middle  tones  were  sweet,  rich  and 
beautifully  varied;  when  he  elevated  his  voice  to  its 
highest  pitch,  the  house  was  completely  filled  with  the 
volume  of  the  sound."  Friends  and  foes  alike  listened 
in  breathless  silence  to  him.  No  one  could  say  that  he 
failed  to  hold  the  attention  of  his  hearers.  Indeed, 
according  to  all  accounts  we  have  of  him,  he  was  such 
a  complete  orator  that  one  is  almost  inclined  to  ques 
tion  whether  Burke  can  be  called  an  orator  at  all.  He  / 
may  have  been  merely  a  man  of  literary  genius  who/ 
made  speeches  in  Parliament. 

The  few  of  Chatham's  speeches  that  have  been  pre 
served  are  not  long,  and  are  much  superior  to  Burke's 
in  clearness  of  diction  and  sustained  interest.  As  Lord 
Rosebery  has  recently  shown,  it  is  doubtful  if  we  have 
any  of  Chatham's  speeches  that  have  not  been  doctored 
and  rewritten  for  him.  There  was  no  reporting  in  his 
early,  and  very  inferior  reporting  in  his  later  days. 
But  assuming  that  those  we  have  are  reasonably  like  the 
originals,  it  must  be  confessed  that  they  are  models  of 
literary  form  and  beautiful  English ;  and  the  remarkable 
part  about  them  is,  that  their  merits  are  so  evenly  main 
tained  throughout  every  part  of  what  he  says.  His  con 
tinuous  vivid  clearness  and  continuous  elevation  above 
the  commonplace  would  be  very  difficult  to  equal. 
Take,  for  example,  one  of  his  ordinary,  seldom  quoted 
passages : 

5  65 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

"A  great  deal  has  been  said  without  doors  of  the  power, 
of  the  strength,  of  America.  It  is  a  topic  that  ought  to  be 
cautiously  meddled  with.  In  a  good  cause,  on  a  sound  bottom, 
the  force  of  this  country  can  crush  America  to  atoms.  I  know 
the  valor  of  your  troops.  I  know  the  skill  of  your  officers. 
There  is  not  a  company  of  foot  that  has  served  in  America 
out  of  which  you  may  not  pick  a  man  of  sufficient  knowledge 
and  experience  to  make  a  governor  of  a  colony  there.  But 
on  this  ground,  on  the  stamp  act,  which  so  many  here  will 
think  a  crying  injustice,  I  am  one  who  will  lift  up  my  hands 
against  it.  In  such  a  cause  your  success  would  be  hazardous. 
America,  if  she  fell,  would  fall  like  a  strong  man;  she  would 
embrace  the  pillars  of  the  State  and  pull  down  the  Constitution 
along  with  her."  (Speech  on  the  Right  to  Tax  America,  Jan. 
16,  1776.) 

That  passage  shows  the  aptitude  of  language  he 
could  usually  maintain.  Then  there  is  the  passage 
so  well  known  in  this  country :  "  But,  my  lords,  who  is 
the  man  that,  in  addition  to  these  disgraces  and  mis 
chiefs  of  our  army,  has  dared  to  authorize  and  associate 
to  our  arms  the  tomahawk  and  scalping-knife  of  the 
savage?  To  call  into  civilized  alliance  the  wild  and 
inhuman  savage  of  the  woods ;  to  delegate  to  the  merci 
less  Indian  the  defense  of  disputed  rights,  and  to  wage 
the  horrors  of  his  barbarous  war  against  our  brethren  ?  " 

Those  passages  the  reader  can  compare  with  the 
passages  quoted  from  Webster,  and  decide  for  himself 
the  ability  of  the  two  men  as  masters  of  the  sentences. 
The  first  few  pages  of  Webster's  speech  in  the  White 
murder  trial,  the  description  of  the  murder  and  the  con 
sciousness  of  guilt  that  haunted  the  assassin  have  prob 
ably  never  been  surpassed,  and  raise  Webster  far  above 
both  Erskine  and  Fox.  Schoolboys  used  to  recite  them, 
and  possibly  still  recite  them.  Too  long  to  quote  in 
full,  a  short  quotation  to  recall  them  to  mind  may  be 
made  immediately  following  the  part  where  Webster 
described  the  assassin  as  believing  that  his  secret  was 
safe: 

"Ah,  gentlemen,  that  was  a  dreadful  mistake.  Such  a 
secret  can  be  safe  nowhere.  The  whole  creation  of  God 

66 


ELOQUENCE 

has  neither  nook  nor  corner  where  the  guilty  can  bestow  it, 
and  say  it  is  safe.  Not  to  speak  of  that  eye  which  pierces 
through  all  disguises,  and  beholds  everything  as  in  the  splendor 
of  noon,  such  secrets  of  guilt  are  never  safe  from  detection, 
even  by  men.  True  it  is,  generally  speaking,  that  '  murder  will 
out.'  True  it  is  that  Providence  hath  so  ordained,  and  doth 
so  govern  things,  that  those  who  break  the  great  law  of 
heaven  by  shedding  man's  blood  seldom  succeed  in  avoiding 
discovery.  Especially  in  a  case  exciting  so  much  attention 
as  this,  discovery  must  come,  and  will  come,  sooner  or  later. 
A  thousand  eyes  turn  at  once  to  explore  every  man,  every 
thing,  every  circumstance  connected  with  the  time  and  place; 
a  thousand  ears  catch  every  whisper ;  a  thousand  excited  minds 
intensely  dwell  on  the  scene,  shedding  all  their  light,  and 
ready  to  kindle  the  slightest  circumstance  into  a  blaze  of  dis 
covery.  Meantime  the  guilty  soul  cannot  keep  its  own  secret. 
It  is  false  to  itself;  or  rather  it  feels  an  irresistible  impulse 
of  conscience  to  be  true  to  itself.  It  labors  under  its  guilty 
possession  and  knows  not  what  to  do  with  it.  The  human 
heart  was  not  made  for  the  residence  of  such  an  inhabitant. 
It  finds  itself  preyed  on  by  a  torment  which  it  dares  not 
acknowledge  to  God  or  man.  A  vulture  is  devouring  it,  and 
it  can  ask  no  sympathy  or  assistance  either  from  heaven  or 
earth." 

In  vividness  and  immortal  interest  Webster  can 
often  equal  Chatham  at  his  best.  In  continuous  main 
tenance  of  such  a  style  Chatham  may  be  superior.  But 
if  Chatham  had  dealt  with  all  the  dry  topics  Webster 
handled,  and  all  his  speeches  had  been  preserved  as 
delivered,  the  difference  between  the  two  men  in  this 
respect  might  be  less  marked.  Which  of  them  excelled 
in  voice  and  manner  would  now  be  impossible  to  deter 
mine.  Webster  made  few  gestures;  but,  if  we  can  be 
lieve  his  contemporaries,  his  voice  and  appearance,  his 
enunciation  of  words,  his  transfusion  of  his  own  char-  \ 
acter,  emotion,  and  intellect  into  his  tones  and  manner  \ 
always  charmed  and  fascinated  and  carried  away  his  V 
hearers.  William  Plumer,  in  his  reminiscences,  de 
scribes  the  effect  of  Webster's  manner  even  in  the  de 
livery  of  a  few  ordinary  after-dinner  remarks,  which 
contained  nothing  of  importance.  Five  minutes  after 
the  other  speakers  had  resumed  their  seats,  he  said,  no 

67 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

one  remembered  what  they  had  said ;  while  every  word 
of  Webster's  had  burnt  itself  into  the  hearer's  memory. 
The  descriptions  of  the  crowds,  composed  often 
largely  of  ladies,  who  would  go  to  hear  Webster  deliver 
a  dry  legal  argument  merely  for  the  sake  of  his  fas 
cinating  voice  and  the  tremendous  impression  of  power 
in  his  manner,  and  Ticknor's  descriptions  of  the  effect 
of  his  Plymouth  and  other  orations  are  somewhat  simi 
lar  to  the  descriptions  of  Chatham's  eloquence,  which 
those  who  heard  it  said  was  the  "  strength  of  thunder 
and  the  splendor  of  lightning,"  that  "  his  eye  and  coun 
tenance  alone  would  have  conveyed  his  feelings  to  the 
deaf."  Like  Webster,  his  eyes  were,  it  seems,  his 
most  remarkable  and  striking  feature.5 

In  one  respect  Webster  certainly  excelled.  Of 
Chatham  it  is  said  that  "  little  sustained  or  close  argu 
ment  figured  in  his  speeches."  He  appealed  more  to 
strong  passions  and  drew  his  strength  from  the  lofti 
ness  of  his  position.6  But  the  most  striking  quality 
of  Webster  was  his  close  reasoning.  He  dealt  with 
subjects  that  required  it.  As  a  reasoner,  as  an  orator 
who  could  make  closely  reasoned  constitutional  law  so 
eloquent  and  give  it  such  literary  power  that  it  was 
transformed  from  logic  into  sentiment  which  has  bound 
a  nation  together  and  for  which  men  laid  down  their 
lives,  Webster  would  seem  to  stand  above  both  Chatham 
and  Burke.  No  one  else  has  ever  by  such  reasoned 
eloquence,  such  reasoning  literary  power,  opened  so 
wide  the  minds  of  both  judges,  statesmen  and  people. 
It  was  a  domain  all  his  own;  and  a  domain  that  coulcl 
be  conquered  only  by  an  extraordinary  combination 
of  intellect  and  emotion. 

^Webster  developed  rather  slowly,  but  he  kept  on 
developing  all  his  life,  which  seems  to  indicate  the  force- 
fulness  of  his  origin.  He  was  not  in  his  prime  until 

"Rosebery,   Life  of  Chatham,  pp.   448-458. 
'Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  vol.  xlv,  p.  365. 
68 


ELOQUENCE 

he  was  nearly  fifty  jrgars  old,  when  he  delivered  the 
famous  reply  to  Hayne ;  and  his  7th  of  March  speech.  . 
so  vastly  unpopular  among  the  free-soilers,  but,  as  a 
mere  speech,  one  of  the  best  of  his  life,  was  delivered 
when  he  was  sixty-eight.> 

His  brotrfers  and  sisters  had  none  of  his  marvellous 
power.  He  stood  alone  among  them.  In  the  animal 
kingdom  naturalists  used  to  give  to  such  sudden  de 
velopment  in  a  species  the  name  sport,  and  in  modern 
times  the  Darwinians  call  it  a  mutation.  It  is  impossible 
to  account  for  such  appearances,  as  it  is  impossible 
to  account  for  Webster's  contemporary  genius,  Napo 
leon,  the  most  extraordinary  mutation  in  human  intel 
lect  and  physical  endurance  that  has  ever  been  known. 
Perhaps  the  cross  of  the  blonde,  slender  Webster  type 
of  outdoor  farming  people  with  the  dark  complexioned, 
heavily  built,  indoors,  intellectual,  learned  Bachilder 
strain,  was  a  lucky  out-cross — what  the  animal  breeders 
call  a  "  nick."  Such  a  combination  of  opposites  will 
sometimes  give  us  a  hunting  dog  or  a  horse  "  unmatched 
for  courage,  breath  and  speed,"  as  Sir  Walter  Scott 
would  say.  But  even  this  profound  explanation  is 
merely  another  way  of  saying,  I  do  not  know. 


69 


Ill 

EARLY  PROFESSIONAL  DAYS  AND  RELATIONS   WITH 
JUDGE    STORY 

•^GRADUATING  from  Dartmouth  in  August,  1801,  Web 
ster  began  the  study  of  the  law  in  the  office  of  Thomas 
W.  Thompson,  "  next  door,"  he  says,  "  to  my  father's 
house."  It  was  the  adjoining  farm  reallyythe  houses 
being  placed. in  New  England  fashion,  as  near  together 
as  possible,  along  the  road.  Thompson  was  a  friend 
of  Webster's  father,  a  comparatively  young  lawyer,  but 
with  a  good  country  practice  of  small  cases.  He  was 
also  postmaster,  receiving  from  the  office  eight  or  ten 
dollars  a  year;  and  he  afterwards  became  one  of  the 
trustees  of  Dartmouth  College,  and  a  Senator  at  Wash 
ington  from  1814  to  I8I7.1 

Webster  was  not  at  this  time  strongly  drawn  to 
the  law  as  a  profession,  but  "  precipitated  himself  into 
it,"  as  he  says,  at  his  father's  advice  and  request.  His 
studies  began,  as  was  not  uncommon  at  that  time  and 
for  long  afterwards,  with  the  reading  of  books  on 
international  law,  particularly  the  old  author,  Vattel  on 
the  Law  of  Nations.  International  law  is  not  law  at 
all,  in  the  lawyer's  sense,  because  it  cannot  be  brought 
to  the  test  of  a  decision  by  a  court  or  an  execution  by 
the  sheriff.  But  it  was  considered  an  excellent  intro 
ductory  and  broadening  reading  for  a  law  student,  giv 
ing  him  general  conceptions  of  law  and  moral  obligation 
as  well  as  valuable  historical  information.  Webster  read 
Robertson's  Charles  V  for  the  sake  of  its  account  of 
feudalism  and  the  old  legal  ideas  of  Europe ;  and  then 
he  took  up  Blackstone's  commentaries,  the  real  techni 
cality  of  the  old  English  common  law,  written  in  the 

1  Dearborn,  History  of  Salisbury,  p.  156. 
70 


HOUSE    IN    WHICH    WEBSTER    LIVED    AT    DARTMOUTH, 
NORTH    MAIN     STREET 


HOUSE    IN    WHICH    WEBSTER    LIVED    AT    DARTMOUTH, 
SOUTH    MAIN    STREET 


EARLY  PROFESSIONAL  DAYS 

richest,  most  comprehensive  and  even  noblest  style  in 
which  dry  law  was  ever  expressed,  a  style  that  always 
seems  to  smack  of  the  bottle  of  gort_wine ;  the  qldjudge 
is  _said_tp  have  had  beside  him  every  evening  when... he 
wrote.2 

"""Webster  in  maturer  years  loved  to  re-read  Black- 
stone.  But  the  famous  old  Coke  on  Littleton,  at  which 
he  was  put  in  Thompson's  office,  disgusted  him  and 
almost  drove  him  to  despair  of  ever  becoming  a  lawyer. 
He  could  hardly  understand  a  quarter  of  its  abstract 
and  subtle  doctrines,  and  ever  afterwards  condemned  its 
use  for  students  as  perfect  folly.  "  Why  disgust  and 
discourage  a  boy,"  he  says,  "  by  telling  him  that  he 
must  break  into  his  profession  through  such  a  wall  as 
that  ? "  He  abandoned  Coke  and  read  instead  Espi- 
nasse's  Law  of  Nisi  Prius,  which  he  found  quite  intelli 
gible  ;  and  from  that  he  passed  on  to  the  practical  work 
of  writs  and  processes. 

"  I  have  made  some  few  writs,  and  am  now  about  to  bring 
an  action  of  trespass  for  breaking  a  violin.  The  owner  of  the 
violin  was  at  a  husking  where 

'His  jarring  concord  and  discord  dulcet' 

made  the  girls  skip  over  the  husks  as  nimbly  as  Virgil's 
Camilla  over  the  tops  of  the  corn,  till  an  old  surly  creature 
caught  his  fiddle  and  broke  it  against  the  wall.  For  the  sake 
of  having  plump  witnesses,  the  plaintiff  will  summon  all  the 
girls  to  attend  the  trial  at  Concord."  (Private  Correspondence, 
vol.  i,  p.  96.) 

He  had  not  yet  reached  the  grave  responsibilities. 
He  had  a  dog  named  Leo,  with  which  between  writs 
that  autumn  he  hunted  ruffed  grouse  (partridges,  he 
called  them)  and  squirrels.  He  shot  the  wild  pigeons 
that  were  so  numerous  in  those  times ;  fished  in  the 
Merrimac;  and  had  three  or  four  sweethearts,  no  doubt, 
although  he  does  not  expressly  say  so.  His  letters, 
however,  are  full  of  comments  on  the  subject,  teasing 

2  Correspondence,  vol.  ii,  pp.  100,  14;  Curtis,  Life  of  Web 
ster,  vol.  i,  p.  48. 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

his  friends  about  their  flames,  and  protesting  that  he 
himself  had  retired  from  all  that  sort  of  thing. 

These  letters  of  his  early  law  days,  most  of  them  to 
his  former  classmates,  with  some  from  them,  have  very 
fortunately  been  preserved  and  give  a  pleasing  picture. 
They  are  written  by  young  men  who  graduated  four 
years  sooner  than  boys  do  now,  and  who  were  still  under 
the  remaining  influences  of  the  old  Colonial  period. 
They  give  us  glimpses,  and  valuable  ones,  of  the  New 
Hampshire  and  New  England  life  of  those  days. 

Webster's  own  letters  are  those  of  a  well-educated, 
happy-natured  young  fellow,  whose  narrow  means  were 
no  bar  to  his  fun.  He  seems  to  have  got  about  the  coun 
try  a  great  deal,  visiting  and  skylarking  with  those  of 
his  own 


"  It  is  not  long  since  I  was  at  Concord,  we  had  fine  times, 
singing,  dancing  and  skipping.  There  were  a  thousand  in 
quiries  about  you.  Really,  Weld,  you  must  not  let  the  girls 
break  their  hearts  for  you.  I  asked  Miss  —  —  if  she  wanted  to 
see  Mr.  Fuller  very  much.  She  said  that  —  that  —  that  —  that  the 
Lord  knows  what  she  did  say."  (Private  Correspondence, 
vol.  i,  p.  126.) 

Like  a  true  New  England  boy,  he  revisited  his 
college.  He  was  always  inclined  to  drift  back.  He 
wandered  over  among  the  people  along  the  Connec 
ticut  River  and  was  delighted  with  their  manners  and 
ideas.  Old  English  expressions,  like  lackaday,  fre 
quently  occur  in  his  letters.  He  often  wrote  verses 
on  more  or  less  humorous  events  among  his  friends. 
One  whole  letter  is  in  verse  in  Pope's  style.  On  an 
other  occasion  one  of  the  girls,  they  were  forever  talk 
ing  about,  cut  her  foot  on  some  sharp  tool,  and  Web 
ster's  muse,  as  he  says,  immediately  "  broke  out  like 
an  Irish  rebellion." 

"  Rust  seize  the  axe,  the  hoe  or  spade, 
Which  in  your  foot  this  gash  has  made  ! 
Which  cut  thro'  kid  and  silk  and  skin, 
To  spill  the  blood  that  was  within; 
By  which  you're  forced  to  creep  and  crawl, 
Nor  frisk  and  frolic  at  the  ball  ! 
72 


EARLY  PROFESSIONAL  DAYS 

"  But  Clara,   Clara !   were  thy  heart 
As  tender  as  thy  pedal  part; 
From  thy  sweet  lips  did  love  but  flow, 
Swift  as  blood  gushes  from  thy  toe, 
So  many  beaus  would  not  complain 
That  all  their  bows  and  vows  are  vain !  " 

(Private  Correspondence,  vol.  i,  p.   153.) 

He  was  living  the  right  sort  of  life  for  his  age. 
The  collection  of  his  letters  in  two  volumes,  beginning 
with  his  boyish  effusions  and  going  on  down  through 
his  serious  tasks  of  law,  politics,  and  diplomacy,  is  in 
many  respects  the  best  biography  of  him  that  will  ever 
be  written.  As  we  read  along  we  find  the  boyishness 
slowly  changing;  and  in  1806  or  1807,  when  he  was 
about  twenty-four,  striking  sentences  of  the  true  Web- 
sterian  ring  begin  to  appear.  In  the  early  letters  one 
is  inclined  to  skip  or  read  quickly  a  good  deal  of  the 
prattle ;  but  as  he  matures  it  becomes  impossible  to  skip. 
Every  sentence  is  dwelt  upon ;  and  the  conviction  is 
forced  upon  one  that  these  letters  are  really  unusual 
instances  of  capacity  in  the  use  of  language  and  that 
their  literary  value  has  never  been  fully  recognized. 

Webster,  although  himself  a  part  of  the  famous 
literary  upheaval  in  New  England,  was  never  taken  into 
what  became  known  as  the  Mutual  Admiration  Society. 
He  was  older  than  most  of  them;  had  started  in  other 
companionship;  and  at  the  time  they  began  to  flourish 
he  had  mortally  offended  them  by  his  willingness  to  com 
promise  with  the  slave  power  in  order  to  save  the  Union. 
So  his  productions  were  never  "  insured  in  the  Mutual." 
The  Mutual  never  felt  in  duty  bound  to  enlarge,  amplify 
and  insist  on  his  most  trifling  merits.3 

<-ftappy  and  genial  though  he  was  in  his  student  days, 
he  had  nearly  been  prevented  from  studying  law  by 
the  difficulty  his  father  found  in  keeping  Ezekiel  at 
college.*  Some  money,  however,  was  borrowed  from 

8  In  a  reading  room  in  Boston,  on  the  margin  of  a  review 
by  Lowell  of  something  Longfellow  had  written,  or  vice  versa, 
some  one  of  the  unregenerate  wrote  "  Insured  in  the  Mutual." 

73 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

Governor  Oilman,  a  stanch  Federalist  in  politics,  and 
this  tided  over  the  difficulty.  /In  three  or  four  months 
the  difficulty  arose  again,  and  Daniel  gave  up  his  law 
studies  and  in  January  secured  a  position  as  the  teacher 
of  a  small  academy  in  the  village  of  Fryeburgy  It  was 
a  new  wilderness  settlement  in  the  same  foothills  of 
the  White  Mountains,  but  to  the  eastward  and  just 
across  the  border  of  New  Hampshire  in  what  is  now 
Maine,  and  was  then  part  of  Massachusetts.  Buying 
a  horse  for  twenty-five  dollars,  and  with  books  and 
clothes  in  the  saddle  bags,  he  started  to  earn  the  first 
money  of  his  life,  a  salary  of  three  hundred  and  fifty 
dollars  a  year ;  but  half  of  it,  it  seems,  or  six  months' 
service  would  be  enough  to  help  Ezekiel.  He  boarded 
with  the  recorder  of  deeds  of  the  new  county,  who 
employed  him  in  the  evenings  transcribing  deeds  at  the 
rate  of  one  shilling  six  pence. 

"  Of  a  long  winter's  evening,"  he  says,  "  I  could  copy  two 
deeds ;  and  that  was  half  a  dollar.  Four  evenings  in  a  week 
earned  two  dollars;  and  two  dollars  in  a  week  paid  my  board. 
This  appeared  to  me  to  be  a  very  thriving  condition,  for  my 
three  hundred  and  fifteen  dollars'  salary  as  schoolmaster  was 
thus  going  on  without  abatement  or  deduction  for  vivers." 
(Autobiography.) 

Through  the  worst  winter  months  he  worked  and  in 
spring  came  what  he  considered  the  reward. 

"In  May  of  this  year  (1802),  having  a  week's  vacation, 
I  took  my  quarter's  salary,  mounted  a  horse,  went  straight 
over  all  the  hills  to  Hanover,  and  had  the  pleasure  of  putting 
these,  the  first  earnings  of  my  life,  into  my  brother's  hands 
for  his  college  expenses.  Having  enjoyed  this  sincere  and 
high  pleasure,  I  hied  me  back  again  to  my  school  and  my 
copying  of  deeds."  (Autobiography.) 

He  had  no  complaints  to  make  or  boasting  about  the 
sacrifice,  so  we  shall  make  none  for  him.  It  is  interest 
ing  to  note,  however,  that  on  this  visit  to  Hanover  he 
met  for  the  first  time  George  Ticknor,  then  about  to 
enter  Dartmouth,  and  afterwards  Webster's  close  friend 
and  literary  executor.  In  his  "  Recollections  "  Ticknor 

74 


EARLY  PROFESSIONAL  DAYS 

makes  the  important  statement  that  Webster  at  this 
time  "  was  thin,  and  had  not  the  appearance  of  being 
a  strong  man." 

He  was  then  past  twenty ;  but  the  childhood  delicacy 
was  evidently  not  yet  outgrown,  which  was  another  evi 
dence  of  the  slowness  of  his  growth  towards  the  remark 
able  vigor  he  finally  attained.  Another  contemporary 
describes  him  at  this  time  as  without  the  striking  expres 
sion  of  his  later  years.  "  His  cheeks  were  thin,  and 
his  cheekbones  high.  There  was  nothing  specially 
noticeable  about  him  then,  except  his  full,  steady,  large, 
and  searching  eyes."  He  afterwards  described  himself 
at  that  time  as  "  long,  slender,  pale  and  all  eyes ;  indeed, 
I  went  by  the  name  of  all  eyes  the  country  round." 
There  were  not  a  few  who  thought  him  inclined  to  con 
sumption.4 

He  had  been  out  of  college  only  about  a  year  when 
Ticknor  describes  his  visit  of  two  or  three  days  in  his 
old  haunts  and  with  old  friends  still  in  college.  They 
received  him  with  the  welcome  only  boys  can  bestow; 
and  every  college  man  knows  the  delight,  the  eagerness 
and  the  jokes  of  these  reunions.  No  one  probably  en 
joyed  them  more  than  Webster.  <  He  was  always  to 
the  end  of  his  life  a  thorough  college  man.  He  kept 
up  his  Latin,  regretted  that  he  had  not  learned  more 
Greek,  and  continued  the  habit  of  mental  cultivation. 
He  never  forgot  the  delights  of  American  college  life, 
its  ideals,  and  enthusiasms ;  its  half  seclusion  from  the 
world ;  its  exclusiveness,  or,  if  you  please,  its  aristocratic 
tinge ;  he  believed  in  it  and  lived  it  all. N 

Out  of  school  hours  he  was  not,  it  seems,  the  solemn 
personage  some  teachers  are  supposed  to  be. 

FRYEBURG,  March  3,   1802. 

MY  FRIEND. — This  is  one  of  those  happy  mornings  when 
"  spring  looks  from  the  lucid  chambers  of  the  south."  Though 
we  have  snow  in  abundance,  yet  the  air  is  charmingly  serene, 

4Lanman,  Private  Life  of  Webster,  pp.  31,  89. 
75 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

and  Pequawket  puts  on  more  pleasantness  than  I  have  before 
seen  it  clad  in.  If  I  had  an  engagement  of  love,  I  should  cer 
tainly  arrange  my  thoughts  of  this  morning  for  a  romantic 
epistle.  How  fine  it  would  be  to  point  out  a  resemblance 
between  the  clear  lustre  of  the  sun  and  a  pair  of  bright  eyes! 
The  snow,  too,  instead  of  embarrassing,  would  much  assist 
me.  What  fitter  emblem  of  virgin  purity?  A  pair  of  pigeons 
that  enjoy  the  morning  on  the  ridge  of  the  barn  might  be 
easily  transformed  into  turtle-doves  breathing  reciprocal  vows. 
How  shall  I  resist  this  temptation  to  be  a  little  romantic  and 
poetical  ?  "  Loves  "  and  "  doves  "  this  moment  chime  in  my 
fancy  in  spite  of  me.  "  Sparkling  eyes  "  and  "  mournful  sighs," 
*'  constancy  of  soul,"  "  like  needle  to  the  pole,"  and  a  whole 
retinue  of  poetic  and  languishing  expressions  are  now  ready  to 
pour  from  my  pen.  What  a  pity  that  all  this  inspiration  should 
be  lost  for  want  of  an  object!  But  so  it  is.  Nobody  will 
hear  my  pretty  ditties,  unless,  forsooth,  I  should  turn  gravely 
about  and  declaim  them  to  the  maid  who  is  setting  the  table 
for  breakfast ;  but  what  an  indelicate  idea !  a  maid  to  be  the 
subject  of  a  ballad?  'twere  blasphemy.  Apollo  would  never 
forgive  me.  Well,  then,  I  will  turn  about,  and  drink  down 
all  my  poetry  with  my  coffee.  "  Yes,  ma'am,  I  will  come  to 
breakfast."  (Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xvi,  p.  4.) 


At  Fryeburg  he  had  found  a  circulating  library 
and  when  not  teaching  he  read,  as  he  tells  us,  Adams's 
"  Defence  of  the  American  Constitutions,"  Mosheim's 
"  Ecclesiastical  History,"  Goldsmith's  "  History  of 
England,"  Blackstone's  "  Commentaries,"  and  Ames's 
celebrated  speech  on  the  British  Treaty.  The  last  he 
committed  to  memory,  as  was  his  constant  practice, 
with  any  eloquence  or  poetry  that  struck  his  fancy.  He 
read  also  at  this  time,  as  his  friend  McGaw  tells  us,  the 
"  Spectator,"  the  "  Tatler,"  and  all  of  Pope's  poetical 
works.  This  was  a  good  deal  of  the  literature  of  that 
day.  Our  modern  literature  had  not  then  quite  begun. 
Sir  Walter  Scott  was  on  the  eve  of  fame.  His  Lay 
of  the  Last  Minstrel  appeared  in  1805,  and  in  1814, 
when  looking  for  some  fishing  tackle,  he  found  his 
almost  forgotten  manuscript  of  Waverley  and  pub 
lished  it. 

One  more  quotation  from  Webster's  letters  to  show 
76 


EARLY  PROFESSIONAL  DAYS 

the  times  and  his  life.  He  had  gone  away  from  Frye- 
burg  for  a  few  days  to  see  his  brother  sick  at  college, 
also  to  see  a  young  man  who  was  dying  and  engaged  to 
be  married  to  his  eldest  sister,  and  he  was  returning  on 
horseback. 

"  I  accidentally  fell  in  with  one  of  my  scholars,  on  his 
return  to  the  academy.  He  was  mounted  on  the  ugliest  horse 
I  ever  saw  or  heard  of,  except  Sancho  Panza's  pacer.  As  I 
had  two  horses  with  me  I  proposed  to  him  to  ride  one  of 
them,  and  tie  his  bag  fast  to  his  Bucephalus;  he  did  accord 
ingly,  and  turned  him  forward,  where  her  odd  appearance,  in 
describable  gait,  and  frequent  stumblings  afforded  us  constant 
amusement.  At  length  we  approached  the  Saco  River,  a  very 
wide,  deep  and  rapid  stream,  when  this  satire  on  the  animal 
creation,  as  if  to  revenge  herself  on  us  for  our  sarcasms, 
plunged  into  the  river,  then  very  high  by  the  freshet,  and  was 
wafted  down  the  current  like  a  bag  of  oats!  I  could  scarcely 
sit  on  my  horse  for  laughter.  I  am  apt  to  laugh  at  the 
vexations  of  my  friends.  The  fellow,  who  was  of  my  own 
age,  and  my  room-mate,  half  checked  the  current  by  oaths  as 
big  as  lobsters,  and  the  old  Rosinante,  who  was  all  the  while 
much  at  her  ease,  floated  up  among  the  willows  far  below  on 
the  opposite  shore."  (Correspondence,  vol.  i,  p.  109.) 

XV 

^"  He  was  offered  an  increased  salary  as  teacher  at 
f  ryeburg,  five  or  six  hundred  dollars  a  year,  a  house 
to  live  in,  a  piece  of  land  to  cultivate,  and  the  proba 
bility  of  the  clerkship  of  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas. 
It  was  a  large  and  tempting  offer,  under  all  the  circum 
stances.  But  he  refused  it  principally  because  his 
father  and  friends  wished  him  to  stick  to  the  law.  So 
he  returned  to  Mr.  Thompson's  office  in  September, 
where  he  remained  until  February  or  March,  1804;*  and 
he  has  described  for  us  his  life. 

"  I  do  not  know  whether  I  read  much,  during  this  year 
and  a  half,  beside  law  books,  with  two  exceptions.  I  read 
Hume,  though  not  for  the  first  time;  but  my  principal  occupa 
tion  with  books,  when  not  law  books,  was  with  the  Latin 
Classics.  I  brought  from  college  a  very  scanty  inheritance  of 
Latin.  I  now  tried  to  add  to  it.  I  made  myself  familiar  with 
most  of  Tully's  orations,  committed  to  memory  large  passages 
of  some  of  them,  read  Sallust,  and  Caesar  and  Horace.  Some 

77 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

of  Horace's  odes  I  translated  into  poor  English  rhymes;  they 
were  printed;  I  have  never  seen  them  since.  My  brother  was 
a  far  better  Latin  scholar  than  myself,  and  in  one  of  his 
vacations  we  read  Juvenal  together.  But  I  never  mastered  his 
style  so  as  to  read  him  with  ease  and  pleasure.  >Af^this 
period  of  my  life  I  passed  a  great  deal  of  time  alone.  My 
amusements  were  fishing,  and  shooting,  and  riding;  and  all 
these  were  without  a  companion.  I  loved  this  occasional  soli 
tude  then,  and  have  loved  it  ever  since,  and  love  it  still.  I 
like  to  contemplate  nature,  and  to  hold  communion,  unbroken 
by  the  presence  of  human  beings,  with  "  this  universal  frame, 
thus  wondrous  fair ; "  I  like  solitude  also  as  favorable  to 
thoughts  less  lofty.  I  like  to  let  the  thoughts  go  free,  and 
indulge  in  their  excursions.  And  when  thinking  is  to  be  done, 
one  must,  of  course,  be  alone.  No  man  knows  himself  who 
does  not  thus,  sometimes,  keep  his  own  company.  At  a  subse 
quent  period  of  life,  I  have  found  that  my  lonely  journeys, 
when  following  the  court  on  its  circuits,  have  afforded  many 
an  edifying  day"  ^(Autobiography,  Correspondence,  vol.  i, 

P.  15.)  ** 

/*» 

\  Some  of  the  great  speeches  of  his  life,  he  relates, 
were  worked  out  on  solitary  journeys  or  during  amuse 
ments.  \  The  argument  in  the  Dartmouth  College  case 
was  mainly  arranged,  he  says,  on  a  journey  from  Boston 
to  Barnstable  and  back,  and  the  oration  at  Bunker  Hill 
was  in  great  part  composed  while  trout  fishing  in 
Mashpee  Brook,  near  Cape  Cod. 

In  the  spring  of  1804,  the  family  resources  ran  so 
low  again  that  it  became  necessary  for  either  his  brother 
or  himself  to  undertake  something  that  would  bring  in 
a  little  money.  They  found  in  Boston  a  college  friend, 
Dr.  Perkins,  afterwards  a  physician  of  some  distinction, 
who  was  just  about  giving  up  the  teaching  of  a  school 
in  Short  Street.  Ezekiel  took  the  school  and  got  on  so 
well  that  he  invited  Daniel  to  come  and  live  with  him 
and  study  law  in  Boston.  He  accordingly  went  to  Bos 
ton  and  tried  to  secure  a  place  in  some  lawyer's  office ; 
but  being  without  friends  or  letters  of  introduction,  he 
received  rebuffs  from  some  of  the  legal  luminaries 
which  were  afterwards  amusing  recollections  for  him. 
/Christopher  Gore,  whose  fortune,  after  his  death, 

78 


EARLY  PROFESSIONAL  DAYS 

built  Gore  Hall  at  Harvard  College,  was  a  prominent 
lawyer,  an  aristocratic  Boston  Federalist  with  a  coach 
and  four,  and  afterwards  Governor  of  Massachusetts 
and  a  Senator  at  Washington.  He  had  just  returned 
from  England,  where  he  had  been  for  eight  years  as 
one  of  the  commissioners  under  the  Jay  treaty  to  settle 
claims  for  damages  by  British  cruisers  during  the 
French  Revolution.  Hearing  that  he  was  to  renew  his 
practice  and  wanted  a^lerk,  Daniel  accompanied  by  a 
friend  went  to  call  on  hTm.  The  friend  was  also  un 
known  to  Mr.  Gore,  but  went  through  the  form  of  in- 
tro^ucing  Daniel,  who  made  a  set  speech  of  apology 
for  the  intrusion,  said  he  was  from  the  country,  Jiad 
jfriends  in  New  Hampshire  from  whom  he  would  ob- 
tain  letters^  if  meanwhile  Mr.  Gore  would  be  gracious 
enough  to  hold  open  for  him  the  clerkship. 

Gore,  an  accomplished  man  of  the  world,  was  evi 
dently  amused  and  interested  by  the  whole  perform 
ance.  He  spoke  kindly,  made  many  inquiries,  and  after 
a  conversation  of  about  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  as  Web 
ster  rose  to  depart,  he  said : 

"  My  young  friend,  you  look  as  though  you  might  be 
trusted.  You  say  you  came  to  study,  and  not  to  waste  time. 
I  will  take  you  at  your  word.  You1  may  as  well  hang  up  your 
hat,  at  once ;  go  into  the  other  room ;  take  your  book  and 
sit  down  to  reading  it,  and  write  at  your  convenience  to  New< 
Hampshire  for  your  letters."  (Autobiography,  Correspond 
ence,  vol.  i,  p.  18.) 
% 

This  was.  a  great  piece  of  educational  fortune.     It  \ 
brought  Webster  at  once  into  the  highest  circle  of  law  / 
and  politics  in  New  England.     He  became  familiar  with 
the  best  methods,  saw  distinguished  men,  the  leaders  of  > 
the  bar :  Chief  Justice  Parsons,  Dexter,  Otis,  and  Sulli 
van  ;  and  to  this  source  Senator  Lodge  traces  "  that 
strong  taste  for  everything  dignified  and  refined  which 
was  so  marked  a  trait  of  his  disposition  and  habits." 
It  no  doubt  increased  that  trait ;  but  the  cause  of  it,  as 
already  intimated,  was  in  his  original  home  surround- 

79 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

ings,  which  were  Federalist  and  refined  with  a  great 
respect  for  education  and  learning.  The  old  Federalists 
were  all  great  swells  or  the  admirers  of  swells;  and 
for  some  years,  even  up  to  the  time  he  first  went  to 
Congress,  Webster  is  said  to  have  assumed  at  times 
a  very  Federalist  and  uplifted  tone  which  the  Demo 
crats  sometimes  called  arrogance.5 

He  remained  in  this  office  nearly  a  year/and  in  his 
duty  of  teaching  in  the  Short  Street  School  on  an  occa 
sion  of  his  brother's  absence,  had  for  a  pupil  Edward 
Everett,  who  in  time  became  a  distinguished  orator  of 
the  artificial,  rhetorical  type.  The  pupil  also  became 
Webster's  life-long  friend  and  admirer,  the  editor  of 
the  edition  of  his  works  in  1851,  and  after  his  death  his 
eulogist. 

In  November  of  the  year  1804  he  appears  to  have 
made  a  trip  to  Albany  with  some  gentleman  who  needed 
his  services,  paid  the  expenses,  and  gave  him  in  addi 
tion  what  he  calls  "  one  hundred  and  twenty  dear 
delightfuls,  all  my  own,  yes,  every  dog  of  'em.  I 
was  so  proud  to  have  a  dollar  of  my  own  I  was  deter 
mined  to  tell  you  of  it."  About  a  year  afterwards  his 
father  wrote  him  that  he  had  secured  for  him  the 
clerkship  of  the  county  court  in  New  Hampshire  at  a 
salary  of  $1500,  which  seemed  a  great  sum.  It  would 
support  the  whole  family.  The  father  was  evidently 
delighted  with  the  prize  and  was  also  gratified  by  the 
unanimity  with  which  all  the  other  judg^  had  assented 
to  the  appointment.  The  appointment  indeed  was  one 
which  the  family  had  been  hoping  for  ever  since  the 
Revolution. 

Daniel  was  becoming  enamored  of  his  profession. 
He  hated  the  clerkship  and  all  clerkships.  But  the 
fifteen  hundred  a  year  seemed  the  highest  point  of  ter 
restrial  bliss.  He  showed  the  letter  to  Mr.  Gore  and 
was  quite  taken  aback  when  his  preceptor  advised  him 

0  Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xvii,  p.  547- 
80 


MINIATURE    OF    WEBSTER    AT    THE    AGE    OF    ABOUT 
TWENTY-TWO    TO     TWENTY-SIX 


EARLY  PROFESSIONAL  DAYS 

to  decline  this  enormous  salary  and  honor.  He  would 
soon  be  a  lawyer,  Mr.  Gore  said ;  he  would  be  able  to 
make  his  way  as  well  as  others ;  the  office  of  clerk  was 
precarious ;  it  depended  on  the  will  of  others ;  other  times 
and  other  men  might  arise  and  the  office  be  given  to 
some  one  else. 

"  And  in  the  second  place,  if  permanent  it  was  a  stationary 
place;  that  a  clerk  once  I  was  probably  nothing  better  than  a 
clerk,  ever ;  and  in  short,  that  he  had  taken  me  for  one  who 
was  not  to  sit  with  his  pen  behind  his  ear.  '  Go  on/  said  he, 
'  and  finish  your  studies ;  you  are  poor  enough,  but  there  are 
greater  evils  than  poverty;  live  on  no  man's  favor;  what  bread 
you  do  eat,  let  it  be  the  bread  of  independence ;  pursue  your 
profession,  make  yourself  useful  to  your  friends,  and  a  little 
formidable  to  your  enemies,  and  you  have  nothing  to  fear.' " 
(Autobiography,  Correspondence,  vol.  i,  p.  21.) 

Convinced  at  last  by  this  advice,  though  not  without 
great  reluctance  at  the  abandonment  of  such  riches, 
Daniel  had  now  the  unpleasant  task  of  breaking  the 
news  of  this  decision  to  his  father,  on  whom  he  feared 
it  would  fall  like  a  thunderbolt. 

"  It  was  now  mid-winter ;  I  looked  round  for  a  sleigh 
(stage  coaches,  then,  no  more  ran  into  the  centre  of  New 
Hampshire  than  they  ran  to  Baffin's  Bay),  and  finding  one  that 
had  come  down  to  the  market,  I  took  passage  therein,  and  in 
two  or  three  days  was  set  down  at  my  father's  door.  I  was 
afraid  my  own  resolution  would  give  way  and  that  after  all 
I  should  sit  down  to  the  clerk's  table.  But  I  fortified  myself 
as  well  as  I  could.  I  put  on,  I  remember,  an  air  of  confidence, 
success,  and  gaiety.  It  was  evening,  my  father  was  sitting 
before  his  fire,  and  received  me  with  manifest  joy.  He  looked 
feebler  than  I  had  ever  seen  him,  but  his  countenance  lighted 
up  on  seeing  his  clerk  stand  before  him,  in  good  health  and 
better  spirits." 

The  father  enlarged  on  the  value  of  the  appoint 
ment,  how  spontaneously  it  had  been  made,  how  kindly 
the  Chief  Justice  had  proposed  it;  and  then  Daniel, 
nerving  himself,  made  his  compliments  to  the  judges. 
If  he  was  to  spend  his  life  recording  anybody's  judg- 
6  81 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

ments  he  should  be  proud  to  record  theirs;  but  he 
really  thought  he  could,  in  the  end,  do  better  than 
fifteen  hundred  a  year;  he  meant  to  use  his  tongue  in 
court,  not  his  pen;  to  be  an  actor,  not  a  register  of 
other  men's  actions;  and  that  he  hoped  to  astonish  his 
own  father  in  his  own  court  by  his  professional  attain 
ments. 

"  For  a  moment  I  thought  he  was  angry.  He  rocked  his 
chair  slightly;  a  flash  went  over  an  eye,  softened  by  age,  but 
still  as  black  as  jet;  but  it  was  gone,  and  I  thought  I  saw  that 
parental  partiality  was,  after  all,  a  little  gratified  at  this  appa 
rent  devotion  to  an  honorable  profession,  and  this  seeming 
confidence  of  success  in  it.  '  Well,  my  son,  your  mother  has 
always  said  you  would  come  to  something  or  nothing,  she  was 
not  sure  which;  and  I  think  you  are  now  about  settling  that 
doubt  for  her.'  This  he  said,  and  never  a  word  spoke  more 
to  me  on  the  subject.  I  stayed  at  home  a  week,  promised  to 
come  to  him  again  as  soon  as  I  was  admitted,  and  returned 
to  Boston." 

So  he  abandoned  the  temptation  of  present'  riches; 
and  it  was  many  years  before  his  fees  were  more  than 
fifteen  hundred  a  year.  He  was  admitted  to  the  Boston 
Bar  in  March,  1805 ;  returned  to  New  Hampshire,  and 
opened  an  office  in  the  village  of  Boscawen,  near  his 
father's  farm,  where  for  two  and  a  half  years  he  prac 
ticed  law  sufficiently  to  support  himself  and  help  the 
family.  He  studied  much,  read  history  and  literature, 
and  wrote  articles  and  reviews  for  the  Boston  Anthol 
ogy,  a  famous  New  England  magazine  in  its  day  and 
the  forerunner  of  the  North  American  Review. 

Meantime,  his  father  died,  and  there  being  nothing 
now  to  keep  him  at  home  Daniel  turned  over  his  law 
practice  and  the  care  of  his  mother  and  sisters  to  Ezekiel, 
and  carried  out  his  original  intention  of  going  to  live 
in  Portsmouth,  the  principal  trading  town  and  commer 
cial  centre  of  the  State.  A  few  dollars  could  be  made 
at  Tr>oscawen,  but  there  was  "  no  pleasure  of  a  social 
sort,"  he  says,  and  that  was  always  an  important  thing 
for  him.  At  Portsmouth  there  was  some  chance  for  a 

82 


EARLY  PROFESSIONAL  DAYS 

lawyer  to  make  more  than  six  or  seven  hundred  dollars 
a  year,  which  was  all  he  had  been  able  to  get  out  of 
country  practice  at  Boscawen.  He,  however,  continued 
to  help  support  his  mother  and  sisters,  and  pay  off 
the  father's  debts,  which  he  had  assumed.  He  was 
ambitious  for  the  larger  and  more  learned  legal  field; 
and  in  an  enthusiastic  youthful  letter  he  had  denounced 
what  he  called  "  the  low  resources  of  attorneyism  "  and 
"  the  mean,  money  catching  practices  "  of  country  busi 
ness  where,  he  says,  "  we  cannot  study  because  we  must 
pettifog."6 

It  was  September,  1807,  that  he  went  to  live  in 
Portsmouth,  and  he  remained  there  almost  nine  years, 
"  very  happy  years,"  he  says.^>  Portsmouth  was  an  old 
seaport  with  history,  tradition,  and  families  going  far 
back  into  colonial  times.  The  principal  Congregational 
church  of  the  town  was  in  charge  of  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Buckminster,  father  of  the  brilliant  young  man  who, 
as  usher  at  Exeter,  had  tried  to  lead  Webster  out 
of  his  bashfulness  in  public  speaking.  Young  Buck- 
minster  was  now  in  charge  of  a  church  in  Boston, 
and  was  one  of  the  founders  of  the  Boston  Anthol 
ogy  for  which  Webster  wrote  articles.  On  Web 
ster's  first  appearance  in  the  church  in  Portsmouth, 
soon  after  his  arrival,  the  daughters  of  Dr.  Buck- 
minster  were  much  impressed  by  his  appearance. 
One  of  them  immediately  reported  that  she  was  sure 
"  he  had  a  most  marked  character  for  good  or  evil." 
Another  described  him  as  "  slender  and  apparently  of 
delicate  organization ;  his  large  eyes  and  massive  brow 
seemed  very  predominant  above  the  other  features, 
which  were  sharply  cut,  refined  and  delicate.  The 
paleness  of  his  complexion  was  heightened  by  hair  as 
black  as  a  raven's  wing." 

He  was  twenty-five,  but  evidently  had  not  yet  gained 
his  full  vigor,  and  was  out  of  proportion ;  not  filled  out 


6  Correspondence,   vol.  i,   p.  222. 
83 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

to  the  harmony  of  later  years.  But  that  brow  and  the 
black  eyes  and  hair,  then  as  always,  riveted  everyone's 
attention.  He  was  even  then  an  actor  in  every  fibre 
of  his  being.  The  wonderful  effect  of  his  maturest 
speeches  of  later  life  was  heightened  by  every  motion 
of  his  frame,  and  every  glance  of  his  countenance  speak 
ing  with  the  words.  It  was  instinctive  with  him,  a 
gift,  an  idiosyncrasy  of  muscles  and  nerves;  and  it 
slowly  increased  in  effectiveness  with  years.  Mrs. 
Buckminster  Lee  when  a  girl  saw  its  first  manifesta 
tions  and  she  described  also  the  humor,  the  droll  sar 
casm  which  he  afterwards  used  as  such  an  effective 
weapon  in  debate. 

"  We  soon  saw  enough  of  him  to  appreciate  in  some  de 
gree,  young  as  we  were,  his  extraordinary  genius,  and  the 
noble  qualities  of  his  character.  The  genial  and  exceedingly 
rich  humor  that  he  so  often  exhibited  was,  perhaps,  at  this 
time  more  prized  by  us  than  any  other  of  the  diversified  talents 
we  admired  in  him.  He  soon  formed  a  circle  around  him,  of 
which  he  was  the  life  and  soul.  We  young  people  saw  him  only 
rarely,  in  friendly  visits.  I  well  remember  one  afternoon  that 
he  came  in,  when  the  elders  of  the  family  were  absent.  He 
sat  down  by  the  window,  and,  as  now  and  then  an  inhabitant 
of  the  small  town  passed  through  the  street,  his  fancy  was 
caught  by  their  appearance  and  his  imagination  excited,  and 
he  improvised  the  most  humorous  imaginary  histories  about 
them,  which  would  have  furnished  a  rich  treasure  for  Dickens, 
could  he  have  been  the  delighted  listener,  instead  of  the  young 
girl  for  whose  amusement  this  wealth  of  invention  was  ex 
pended.  Hon.  Mr.  Mason,  of  Portsmouth,  who  delighted  in 
the  humor  so  often  displayed  by  Mr.  Webster,  used  to  say, 
that  'There  was  never  such  an  actor  lost  to  the  stage  as  he 
would  have  made  had  he  chosen  to  turn  his  talents  in  that 
direction.'"  (Correspondence,  vol.  i,  p.  439.) 

It  was  a  fine  life  for  a  young  fellow  of  his  talents 
to  have  dropped  into  this  intelligent  and  agreeable  set 
in  a  New  England  seaport,  with  ships  and  commerce 
enough  to  give  a  picturesque  touch  of  the  great  world 
beyond  the  waters.  On  a  smaller  scale  it  must  have 
been  something  like  the  old  life  in  Salem  which  had 

84 


Courtesy  of  the  S.  S.  McClure  Company 

MRS.    GRACE     FLETCHER    WEBSTER 


EARLY  PROFESSIONAL  DAYS 

such  a  curious  and  fascinating  connection  with  India 
and  the  East.  Webster  may  have  acquired  at  this  time 
his  love  of  the  salt  air  and  the  sea,  and  added  a  new 
domain  of  thought  and  romantic  imagery  to  his  expand 
ing  mind.  The  sea  air  may  also  have  had  another 
effect;  for  we  read  that  he  soon  grew  stouter  and  his 
delicacy  of  health  disappeared. 

He  had  frolicked  in  the  town  as  a  bachelor  less 
than  a  year,  when  he  disappeared,  on  a  mere  visit  as 
was  supposed  to  his  old  home,  and  returned  married 
to  Miss  Grace  Fletcher,  daughter  of  the  minister  of  the 
church  at  Hopkinton.  She  seems  to  have  been  one  of 
those  typical  New  England  women  of  good  education 
and  bright  mind,  possibly  of  frail  physique,  but  full  of 
energy  and  interested  in  things  of  the  mind.7  She  be 
came  a  most  congenial  companion  for  her  husband.  The 
singular  success  and  applause  which  he  afterwards 
attained,  never  disturbed,  it  is  said,  the  balance  of  her 
mind.  Even  when  she  went  with  him  to  Washington 
and  witnessed  some  of  the  gayeties  of  the  capital,  her 
frank  and  winning  manner  remained  untouched  by  any 
social  sordidness.  In  Portsmouth  she  increased  the 
circle  of  her  husband's  admirers  and  gave  him  a  delight 
ful  home,  one  of  the  wooden  houses  of  New  England, 
where  the  low-ceilinged  simple  parlor  is  described  as  a 
most  attractive  room  when  presided  over  by  this  pair 
who  had  a  very  happy  faculty  for  entertaining  their 
friends.  Indeed  the  reminiscences  of  this  period  of  his 
life  are  nearly  all  of  his  gayety  and  humor  rather  than 
of  the  stateliness  and  dignity  of  his  later  years. 

Although  the  defeats  and  victories  in  a  lawyer's 
career  are  apt  to  be  about  equal  in  number,  it  has  be 
come  a  biographical  custom  to  enlarge  on  the  victories 
and  ignore  the  defeats.  It  may  be  well,  therefore,  to 
mention  that  Webster  defended  at  Plymouth  one  Burn- 
ham,  tried  for  murder.  Wonderful,  to  relate,  he  failed 

T  Harvey,  Reminiscences  of  Webster,  p.  319. 
85 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

to  acquit  him,  and  Burnham  was  duly  hung  on  Powder 
House  Hill  in  the  presence  of  ten  thousand  spectators 
and  with  a  Scotch  Presbyterian  minister  preaching  an 
hour's  sermon  at  him.8 

/Some  of  the  leaders  of  the  Boston  Bar — Joseph 
Story,  Samuel  Dexter,  and  Parsons — practised  in 
southern  New  Hampshire,  and  Webster  had  a  chance 
to  meet  them  and  learn  their  methods.  Some  of  the 
New  Hampshire  lawyers — Jeremiah  Smith,  William 
Plumer  (a  Democratic  Governor  of  the  State),  George 
Sullivan,  Ichabod  Bartlett  and  Jeremiah  Mason — have 
left  a  good  reputation  behind  them  for  learning  and 
intellect.  Judge  Story,  who  was  certainly  capable  of 
estimating  them,  ranked  them  very  high ;  and  they,  no 
doubt,  helped  to  train  Webster.9* 

His  law  office  in  Portsmouth  was  a  common,  ordi 
nary  looking  room,  it  is  said,  "  with  less  furniture  and 
more  books  than  common ;  "  and  his  lawyer's  life  dur 
ing  those  nine  years  is  conspicuous  principally  for  his 
association  with  one  man,  Jeremiah  Mason,  fourteen 
years  his  senior.  Mason  was  a  huge  man  of  six  feet 
seven,  massive  in  proportion,  uncouth  and  awkward,  but 
of  remarkable  ability.  He  was  of  the  best  type  of  trial 
lawyer  and  general  practitioner,  retained  in  nearly  all 
the  cases  of  importance  in  southern  New  Hampshire. 
In  character  he  was  liberal  minded  and  friendly,  free 
from  small  jealousies,  but  at  times  very  caustic,  con 
temptuous  and  profane.  "  By  thy  size  and  thy  lan 
guage,"  said  a  Shaker  to  him  one  day,  "  I  judge  that 
thou  art  Jeremiah  Mason." 

8  Mr.  Albert  S.  Batchellor,  editor  of  the  New  Hampshire 
State  Papers,  kindly  called  my  attention  to  this  trial,  still 
remembered  among  New  Hampshire  lawyers.  Grafton  Bar 
Association,  vol.  ii,  p.  604.  Senator  Hoar,  in  his  Autobiography, 
mentions  hearing  Webster  late  in  life  arguing  a  cause  which 
he  lost  and  which  was  not  a  popular  one,  or  one  in  which  he 
cared  to  preserve  his  speech.  He  appeared  before  a  com 
mittee  of  the  Massachusetts  legislature  on  behalf  of  the  re 
monstrants  against  filling  in  the  Back  Bay  district  of  Boston. 

*  Webster  Centennial  at  Dartmouth,  p.  249. 
86 


EARLY  PROFESSIONAL  DAYS 

He  served  four  years  in  the  United  States  Senate 
and  lived  to  the  age  of  eighty-five,  dying  only  four 
years  before  Webster.  They  were  constant  friends  to 
the  last ;  and  Webster  said  of  him  in  his  autobiography 
that  he  had  more  native  resources,  a  stronger  intellect, 
and  a  clearer  and  quicker  mental  vision  than  any  man 
in  the  country,  not  exceeding  Chief  Justice  Marshall. 
"  If  you  were  to  ask  me,"  Webster  once  said,  "  who 
was  the  greatest  lawyer  in  the  country,  I  should  answer 
John  Marshall,  but  if  you  took  me  by  the  throat  and 
pinned  me  to  the  wall  and  demanded  my  real  opinion, 
I  should  be  compelled  to  say  it  was  Jeremiah  Mason."  10 
But  so  ephemeral  is  the  fame  of  a  mere  advocate  that 
Mason  would  long  ago  have  been  forgotten  were  it  not 
for  his  connection  with  Webster. 

Before  Webster  came  to  Portsmouth,  Mason  had 
been  opposed  to  him  in  a  criminal  case  in  which  Webster 
had  taken  the  place  of  the  attorney-general.  Two  some 
what  different  accounts  of  the  case  have  been  given; 
and  perhaps  the  better  one  is  by  Mr.  Curtis,  who  says 
he  had  it  from  Mason  himself. 


"  I  had  heard,"  said  Mr.  Mason,  "  that  there  was  a  young 
lawyer  up  there,  who  was  reputed  to  be  a  wonderfully  able 
fellow ;  and  was  said  by  the  country  people  to  be  as  black  as 
the  ace  of  spades,  but  I  had  never  seen  him.  When  they  told 
me  that  he  had  prepared  the  evidence  for  this  prosecution,  I 
thought  it  well  to  be  careful,  especially  as  the  trial  was  to  be 
conducted  by  the  attorney-general.  But  when  the  trial  came 
on,  the  attorney-general  was  ill,  and  the  prosecutors  asked  that 
Webster  should  be  allowed  to  conduct  the  case.  I  assented 
to  this  readily,  thinking  I  ought  to  have  an  easy  time  of  it; 
and  we  were  introduced  to  each  other.  We  went  at  it,  and 
I  soon  found  that  I  had  no  light  work  on  my  hands.  He 
examined  the  witnesses,  and  shaped  his  case  with  so  much 
skill,  that  I  had  to  exert  every  faculty  I  possessed.  I  got 
the  man  off,  but  it  was  as  hard  a  day's  work  as  I  ever  did 
in  my  life.  There  were  other  transactions  behind  this  one 
which  looked  quite  as  awkward.  When  the  verdict  was  an 
nounced,  I  went  up  to  the  dock,  and  whispered  to  the  pris- 

10  Webster   Centennial   at   Dartmouth,   p.   251. 
8? 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

oner,  as  the  sheriff  let  him  out,  to  be  off  for  Canada,  and 
never  to  put  himself  within  the  reach  of  that  young  Webster 
again.  From  that  time  forth  I  never  lost  sight  of  Mr.  Web 
ster,  and  never  had  but  one  opinion  of  his  powers."  (Curtis, 
Life,  vol.  i,  p.  77,  note.  For  other  version  see  Lodge,  Life  of 
Webster,  pp.  38,  39.) 

At  the  Portsmouth  Bar,  Webster  was  soon  almost 
on  an  equality  with  Mason,  and  they  were  on  opposite 
sides  of  pretty  much  every  important  cause.  On  one 
occasion,  it  is  said,  the  clerk  was  calling  the  docket  and 
various  counsel  entering  their  names,  Mason  and  Web 
ster  answering  for  plaintiff  or  defendant  in  almost 
every  one.  At  last  a  case  was  called  and  Mason  said: 
"  Webster,  what  side  are  you  on  in  this  case  ?  " 
"I  don't  know,"  said  Webster,  "  take  your  choice." 
VOie  frequent  contact  for  nine  years  with  such  a  keen 
opponent  as  Mason  re-educated  Webster,  as  he  frankly 
admitted.  It  compelled  him  to  careful  preparation  and 
the  utmost  alertness  and  the  most  rigid  logic  in  court. 
It  changed  completely  his  style  of  public  speaking,  and 
made  him  a  logician  instead  of  a  declaimer>  He  aban 
doned  altogether,  he  tells  us,  the  florid  style  of  oratory, 
the  vicious  system  he  had  learned  at  college.  He  be 
came  master  of  those  short  sentences  which  are  so  con 
spicuous  in  some  of  his  famous  speeches.  He  sought 
for  that  aptness  in  words  and  that  telling  homely 
brevity  for  which  Mason  was  so  distinguished.  He 
always  acknowledged  his  indebtedness  to  his  instructor 
and  the  two  men  remained  old  cronies  long  after  Web 
ster  left  Portsmouth.  When  Mason  was  in  the  Senate 
they  travelled  together  to  Washington,  renewing  old 
times,  fighting  their  battles  over  again,  and  possibly 
there  were  occasions  when  they  met  again  in  court. 

"  I  have  been  written  to  go  to  New  Hampshire,"  writes 
Webster  to  him  in  1830,  "to  try  a  cause  against  you  next 
August.  If  it  were  an  easy  and  plain  case  on  our  side,  I  might 
be  willing  to  go;  but  I  have  some  of  your  pounding  in  my 
bones  yet,  and  don't  care  about  any  more  till  that  wears  out." 
(Correspondence,  vol.  i,  p.  489.) 


RELATIONS  WITH  JUDGE  STORY 

In  1812  the  old  Federalist  Governor,  Gilman,  who 
had  been  many  times  re-elected  to  the  office  and  was  a 
firm  friend  of  the  Webster  family,  lending  the  father 
money,  gave  another  instance  of  his  continuing  friend 
ship  by  appointing  Daniel  attorney-general  of  the  State. 
But  the  council,  who  were  principally  of  the  opposite 
political  party,  voted  five  to  three  against  confirming  the 
appointment.11 

While  he  lived  in  Portsmouth  Webster's  business 
was  mostly  in  circuit  practice.  He  attended  the  Supe 
rior  Court  in  most  of  the  counties  and  became  familiar 
with  the  lawyers  and  people  of  a  large  part  of  the  State. 
But  his  practice  at  best  was  not  lucrative  and  never 
could  be  forced  beyond  its  narrow  limit.  "  I  do  not 
think,"  he  says,  "  it  was  ever  worth  fairly  two  thousand 
dollars  a  year."  12  This  was  not  much  better  than  the 
court  clerkship  salary  which  had  been  offered  him,  and; 
he  finally  resolved  to  move  to  Boston,  which  he  did  in. 
the  summer  of  1816.  Mason  also,  some  years  after-, 
wards,  at  the  age  of  sixty-four,  moved  to  Boston,  and 
after  practicing  there  for  six  years  had  accumulated 
what  he  deemed  sufficient  to  retire  upon  from  the  more 
active  duties  of  his  profession. 

In  the  life  of  Judge  Story  by  his  son,  complaint 
was  made  that  Webster  would  not  furnish  for  that  work 
either  the  letters  to  him  from  the  Judge  or  allow  his 
own  letters  to  be  printed,  showing  the  advice  and  assist 
ance  the  Judge  had  given  him  in  the  Ashburton  Treaty 
and  other  subjects.  It  may  have  been  that  Webster 
was  merely  following  a  rule  he  had  found  necessary 
to  lay  down  of  never  giving  such  permission,  even  in 
apparently  innocent  cases.  He  had  found,  he  said,  that 
a  permission  once  given  was  assumed  to  extend  to  other 
and  to  all  occasions;  and  he  preferred  to  let  people  do 
such  printing  entirely  on  their  own  responsibility.13 

"Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xiii,  pp.  422,  423. 
12  Autobiography,  Correspondence,  vol.  i,  p.  25. 
18  Life  of  Judge  Story,  vol.  ii,  p.  408. 

89 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

The  letters  in  question,  however,  and  more  of  the 
same  sort,  are  now  printed  in  the  proceedings  of  the 
Massachusetts  Historical  Society,  and  also  in  the  Na 
tional  Edition  of  Webster's  works.  Most  of  them  ask 
the  Judge  quite  difficult  questions,  which  would  take  up 
a  great  deal  of  his  time.  For  example,  in  the  midst  of 
the  Knapp  murder  trial  Webster  writes  to  the  Judge  for 
the  law  on  principal  and  accessory.  Another  letter  be 
gins  "  Help  me  to  make  a  speech ;  "  and  then  asks  for 
some  very  difficult  law  on  the  question  of  our  northeast 
boundary  on  Canada  and  the  relations  of  the  United 
States  to  Great  Britain  at  the  close  of  the  Revolution. 
Another,  being  short,  may  be  quoted,  as  showing  the 
intimacy  of  the  two  men. 

"  Will  you  have  the  goodness  to  give  me  one  hour  of  your 
valuable  time?  Let  it  be  devoted  to  furnishing  me  with  hints 
and  authorities  to  the  following  points,  viz. : 

"  That  a  right  to  navigate  the  upper  part  of  a  river  (say 
the  St.  Lawrence)  draws  after  it  a  right  to  go  to  the  ocean. 

"  Whatever  you  think  or  find  on  this  matter  let  me  know 
by  Wednesday  or  Thursday. 

"Your  troublesome  friend,  D.  WEBSTER/' 

In  the  case  of  two  other  letters  we  now  have  Story's 
answers  in  print.  One  is  in  the  famous  case  of  the 
American  brig  Creole  carrying  slaves  who  mutinied, 
took  the  ship  to  a  port  in  the  British  West  Indies,  and 
were  allowed  by  the  British  authorities  to  gain  their 
freedom.  Webster,  then  Secretary  of  State,  seems  to 
have  acted  upon  the  law  given  him  by  Judge  Story  in 
this  case,  which  was  a  very  delicate  and  impossible  one, 
and  nothing  much  could  be  done.  We  also  have  Web 
ster's  letter  thanking  the  Judge  and  closing  with  a 
request  for  further  assistance. 

"  I  am  in  the  midst  of  things,  and  have  need  not  only  of 
all  my  own  wits,  but  of  the  assistance  of  friends  competent 
to  give  efficient  aid.  You  can  do  more  for  me  than  all  the  rest 
of  the  world,  because  you  can  give  me  the  lights  I  most  want ; 
and  if  you  furnish  them  I  shall  be  confident  they  will  be  true 
lights.  I  shall  trouble  you  greatly  the  next  three  months. 

90 


RELATIONS  WITH  JUDGE  STORY 

For  the  present  I  have  to  ask  that  you  send  me  a  draft  of 
two  articles."  (Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Proc.,  2nd  series,  vol.  xiv, 
p.  410.) 

The  letter  continues  with  requests  for  more  work 
from  the  Judge  in  drawing  articles  on  extradition  of 
criminals  and  on  vessels  driven  by  stress  of  weather 
into  foreign  ports,  work  which  would  now  presumably 
be  done  by  lawyers  in  subordinate  positions  in  the  State 
Department  or  in  the  Attorney-General's  office.  The 
Judge  complied  in  an  elaborate  and  careful  answer. 
It  was  the  time  of  the  Ashburton  Treaty  of  1842, 
the  most  momentous  event  in  our  relations  with 
England  after  the  War  of  1812.  The  Judge  considered 
it  the  greatest  move  that  had  ever  been  made  in  the 
interests  of  permanent  peace.  "  I  will,  therefore,"  he 
says,  "  hold  myself  ready  at  all  times  to  aid  your  efforts, 
whenever  you  may  think  I  can  be  of  any  real  use  in 
accomplishing  so  desirable  an  end."  14 

These  answers  must  have  involved  very  considerable 
labor  for  Judge  Story,  who  in  those  days  was  a  Justice 
of  the  Supreme  Court,  a  Circuit  Judge  for  most  of 
New  England,  a  professor  in  the  Harvard  Law  School, 
and  writing  numerous  text-books.  He  was  capable  of 
almost  unlimited  labor.  To  understand,  apart  from 
his  friendship  for  Webster,  why  he  did  these  things  and 
was  asked  to  do  them,  we  must  remember  that  at  that 
time  the  modern  digests,  text-books  and  various  means 
of  analyzing  and  indexing  the  law  were  almost  totally 
unknown,  and  that  the  Government  at  Washington  was 
so  badly  equipped  and  organized  that  Webster  seems 
to  have  had  no  subordinates  whom  he  could  trust  for 
such  work.  Judge  Story  was  engaged  in  supplying  the 
need  of  text-books,  and  he  wrote  a  number  of  them, 
used  both  in  England  and  America,  and  some  of  them, 

"Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  ocvi,  pp.  160,  205,  298. 
See  also  a  letter  from  Story  showing  that  Webster  consulted 
him  in  the  debate  on  the  Removal  of  the  Deposits.  Life  of 
Story,  vol.  ii,  p.  155. 

91 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

especially  his  "  Conflict  of  Laws  "  and  Commentaries 
on  the  Constitution,  are  still  of  high  authority. 

In  those  days  there  was  apt  to  be  in  every  com 
munity  some  lawyer  of  the  right  sort  of  memory  for 
recollecting  nearly  all  the  important  and  sometimes  un 
important  cases  in  the  reports.  His  brethren  resorted 
to  him  when  they  wanted  precedents  for  supporting 
their  reasoning,  and  it  seems  to  have  been  the  custom 
for  him  good-naturedly  to  comply.  Since  those  days 
the  reported  cases  have  grown  so  numerous  that  no  one 
man  can  remember  more  than  an  infinitesimal  portion  of 
them.  Digests  and  indexes,  of  an  ingenuity  that  would 
amaze  both  Webster  and  Story,  have  been  invented  and 
text-books  which  are  in  effect  digests  and  indexes. 
Modern  brief  makers,  or,  indeed,  students  at  law  and 
head  clerks,  can  now  do  with  astonishing  rapidity  and 
with  scarcely  any  great  amount  of  memory  the  work 
which  Webster  and  other  busy  trial  lawyers  of  his  time 
had  to  ask  to  have  done  for  them  as  an  act  of  brotherly 
kindness. 

This  statement  of  the  changed  conditions  seems 
necessary  to  correct  a  misconception  of  the  professional 
relationship  of  Story  and  Webster.  There  was  nothing 
very  wonderful  about  it  at  the  time,  and  nothing  out 
of  the  way.  Too  much  has  been  made  of  it  by  the  New 
England  abolitionists  and  their  descendants  and  suc 
cessors,  who  are  forever  trying  to  go  back  in  Webster's 
life  and  detect  the  beginning  of  that  horrible  depravity 
and  degeneration  which  finally,  as  they  say,  led  him 
down,  down  to  the  infamy  and  abyss  of  the  7th  of 
March  speech  in  support  of  Clay's  Compromise  of  1850. 

Judge  Story  out  of  his  abundant  vigor  and  enthu 
siasm  made  a  practice  of  assisting  other  statesmen  and 
lawyers  besides  Webster;  and  his  son  gives  numerous 
instances  of  it.  Several  of  the  important  acts  of  Con 
gress  of  that  period  were  drawn  by  him  and  others  were 
submitted  to  him  for  revision  before  they  were  passed. 
He  furnished  material  for  more  than  one  speech,  and 

92 


RELATIONS  WITH  JUDGE  STORY 

his  son  seems  to  think  that  few  important  measures 
were  debated  in  Congress  without  his  aid  being  sought 
by  some  one. 

There  are  stories  about  Webster  in  his  New  Hamp 
shire  practice  resorting  for  precedents  to  one  Parker 
Noyes,  who  had  a  reputation  for  holding  them  like  a 
tank.  This  and  similar  tales,  like  his  help  from  Judge 
Story,  seem  to  have  led  to  the  assertion  sometimes  made, 
that  Webster  was  not  after  all  a  learned  or  profound 
lawyer.  Possibly  not;  for  I  do  not  know  of  any 
formal  or  authoritative  definition  by  the  profession  of 
the  terms  learned  and  profound.  If  such  a  definition 
is  ever  put  forth  I  doubt  very  much  if  it  will  include 
the  tanks  alone.  To  come  within  the  definition  I  should 
suppose  a  man  would  have  to  be  a  legal  reasoner.  Chief 
Justice  Marshall  was  eminently  such  and  was  not  re 
markable  for  precedents.  Story  was  strong  in  prece 
dents,  but  if  he  had  not  also  been  a  legal  reasoner,  I 
doubt  if  we  should  ever  have  heard  much  of  him.  Web 
ster  was  certainly,  by  the  admission  of  all  his  contem 
poraries,  a  legal  reasoner  of  very  high  order,  especially 
in  Constitutional  law.  Without  deciding  which  was  the 
greater,  he  certainly  ranked  in  this  respect  among  Mar 
shall,  Story,  and  similar  men.  He  could  always  obtain 
in  some  way  the  precedents  that  belonged  to  his  argu 
ment  ;  and  he  handled  them  much  better  than  those  who 
knew  nothing  but  precedents. 

Webster  is  said  to  have  originated  what  has  been 
called  the  short  biography  of  most  good  lawyers,  that 
they  lived  well,  worked  hard,  and  died  poor. 

"  Sitting  one  day  at  the  bar  in  Portsmouth  with  an  elderly 
member  of  the  bar,  his  friend,  who  enjoyed  with  a  sufficient 
indulgence  that  part  of  a  lawyer's  lot  which  consists  in  living 
well,  Mr.  Webster  made  an  epitaph  which  would  not  be 
unsuitable : 

"Natus  consumere  fruges, 

Frugibus    consumptis 

Hie  jacet 

R.C.S." 

93 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

He  was  always  fond  of  putting  his  jokes  in  Latin 
and  continued  the  practice  to  the  end  of  his  life.  Writ 
ing  in  court  to  General  Lyman,  he  heads  the  letter : 

"  BOSTON,  Jan'y  15,  1845,  Monday,  12  O'clock. 
"  In  C.  Court  of  United  States,  Many  v.  Sizer  being  on  trial 
and  Tabero  dicente  in  longum  and  another  snow  storm  appear 
ing  to  be  on  the  wing."     (Lyman's  Memorials,  vol.  ii,  p.  152.) 

He  closed  the  letter  with  a  similar  postscript : 

Half-past  two  o'clock.  Cessat  Taber ;  Choate  sequitur,  in 
questione  juris,  crastino  die. 

"Taber  is  learned,  sharp  and  dry; 
Choate,  full  of  fancy,  soaring  high: 
Both  lawyers  of  the  best  report, 
True  to  their  clients  and  the  court ; 
What  sorrow  doth  a  Christian  feel, 
Both  should  be  broken  on  a  wheel." 

The  point  in  the  last  line  was  that  the  case  was 
about  the  infringement  of  a  patent  for  making  water 
wheels. 


94 


IV 

WAR   OF    l8l2    AND    THE    HARTFORD    CONVENTION 

FAMILIAR  with  his  father's  public  career  and  brought 
up  in  an  atmosphere  of  New  Hampshire  politics,  it 
would  have  been  strange  if  Webster  had  not  been  drawn 
in  the  same  direction.  When  twenty-two  years  old  on 
a  visit  to  his  father  in  1804,  there  was  a  hot  contest  for 
the  Governorship  between  Governor  Gilman  and  Gover 
nor  Langdon,  Gilman  was  the  Federalist,  had  lent  the 
father  money,  was  a  stanch  friend  of  the  family,  and 
Daniel  was  asked  to  write  a  pamphlet  on  the  Gilman 
side.  "  I  did  the  deed,"  he  says,  "  at  a  single  sitting 
of  a  winter's  day  and  night,"  calling  it  "  An  Appeal  to 
Old  Whigs."  It  describes  the  complete  immaculateness 
of  the  Federalists  and  the  utter  depravity  of  the  Demo 
crats  in  regulation  partisan  style.  It  is  rather  above 
the  average  of  such  productions ;  but  except  for  a  sen 
tence  here  and  there  is,  of  course,  far  inferior  to  the 
Webster  standard  of  later  years. 

Two  years  afterwards,  in  1806,  he  delivered  a  Fourth 
of  July  address  at  Concord  which  is  a  decided  improve 
ment  on  the  "  Appeal  to^Old  Whigs,"  shows  maturer 
political  thought ;  and  in  two  years  more,  in  1808,  he 
wrote  a  little  pamphlet  called  "  Considerations  on  the 
Embargo  Laws,"  which  is  still  better.  The  steady  ad 
vance  in  power  of  statement  and  argument  shown  in 
these  three  attempts  is  very  interesting  and  characteristic 
of  his  development.  But  he  was  not  yet  in  politics ;  and 
it  was  not  until  four  years  afterwards  that  he  did  any 
thing  to  show  that  he  was  of  real  political  value.  What 
he  said  at  Concord  and  on  the  embargo  was  however, 
a  beginning  for  him  and  involves  the  political  situation 
of  the  time. 

95 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 


He  had  been  brought  up  a  Federalist,  the  name  given 
to  the  more  conservative  of  the  two  parties  that  formed 
after  the  Revolution,  and  the  adoption  of  the  National 
Constitution  of  1787.  It  was  the  party  that  supported 
Washington's  administration  as  President  ;  the  party  of 
Hamilton  and  John  Adams;  the  party  that  inclined  to 
Nationalism  and  a  strong  central  government  as  opposed 
to  the  extreme  State  rights  of  Jefferson  and  the  Repub 
lican  party,  as  it  was  usually  called.  But  Democratic 
party  is  a  more  descriptive  name  for  it) 

When  these  two  parties  were  forming  soon  after 
the  adoption  of  our  National  Constitution,  the  world 
suddenly  heard  of  the  first  scenes  of  the  French  Revolu 
tion,  the  most  momentous  event  in  European  history 
since  the  Reformation.  It  was  in  fact  a  terrible  and 
savage  outbreak  of  the  main  principle  of  the  Reforma 
tion,  the  right  of  private  judgment,  applied  to  political 
government  instead  of  to  religion.  Such  an  application 
was  inevitable.  We  had  made  it  in  our  own  Revolu 
tion,  where  we  insisted  upon  our  right  to  govern  our 
selves,  to  be  free  from  taxation  unless  represented,  to 
be  independent  because  we  were  a  people  naturally 
separated  from  Great  Britain.  Our  Revolution  was 
comparatively  mild,  because  we  were  Anglo-Saxons  and 
because  our  grievances  were  slight  compared  to  those 
of  France,  where  the  masses  of  the  people  were  notori 
ously  held  down  by  a  monarchy,  an  aristocracy  and  a 
rigid  system  which  violated  every  doctrine  of  the  rights 
of  man,  the  rights  of  private  political  judgment,  and  all 
the  rights  of  life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness. 

The  independence  which  we  won,  and  our  conduct 
in  obtaining  it,  were  not  generally  considered  any  serious 
menace  to  the  thrones  and  aristocracy  of  Europe.  But 
the  atrocities  of  the  French  masses  when  aroused,  their 
slaughtering,  cruelty  and  insanity,  their  inability  to 
govern  themselves  or  carry  out  a  single  one  of  the  doc 
trines  of  liberty  which  they  professed,  thoroughly 
alarmed  all  the  rest  of  Europe  and  turned  many  a  liberal 

96 


THE  WAR  OF  1812 

into  a  conservative.  For  the  next  twenty-five  years  the 
Whig  party  in  England  sank  into  the  utmost  insignifi 
cance,  and  there  has  never  since  been  such  ascend 
ency  of  tory  principles  and  extreme  toryism.  Eng 
land,  Russia,  Austria,  Prussia,  Spain  and  even  Norway 
and  Sweden  became  more  and  more  animated  with  the 
one  desire  of  combining  against  France  either  to  wipe 
her  off  the  map,  or  restore  to  her  by  force  her  old 
monarchical  and  aristocratic  system.  It  seemed  to  the 
other  European  nations,  or  at  least  to  the  conservatives 
and  tories  among  them,  that  France  was  threaten 
ing  civilization  and  even  humanity  itself ;  and  that  unless 
she  were  curbed  every  monarchy  and  aristocracy  would 
fall  as  hers  had  fallen,  and  all  Europe  become  a  scene 
of  desolation,  anarchy  and  ruin. 

The  first  ten  years  of  the  French  turmoil,  the  rule 
of  Danton,  Marat,  and  Robespierre  and  the  Reign  of 
Terror,  had  passed  during  Webster's  boyhood;  and  just 
about  the  time  he  went  to  college  at  the  close  of  the 
century,  Napoleon  began  to  appear  in  the  tragic  drama 
of  Europe,  at  first  as  the  young  officer  who  detected  the 
key  of  the  strategic  situation  at  Toulon,  and  drove  the 
English  fleet  from  the  harbor,  then  as  the  first  soldier 
to  understand  the  situation  in  Paris  and  show  the  gov 
ernment  how  to  sweep  the  mob  from  the  streets  with 
cannon. 

From  that  moment  his  advance  was  sure.  The  man 
whoiknew  how  to  control  the  mobs  was  master  of  every 
thing.  Citizen,  General,  First  Consul,  Emperor,  it  made 
no  difference  what  name  you  gave  him,  he  was  the  man 
for  the  time,  the  one  supreme  mind.  In  a  few  months 
he  was  in  control  of  everything,  carrying  his  conquests 
into  Germany,  Prussia,  Austria ;  driving  back  the  allied 
nations  that  were  determined  to  restore  monarchy  and 
aristocracy  to  France,  abolish  equality  and  the  rights 
of  man,  or  exterminate  the  whole  French  people. 

For  fifteen  years,  until  the  Battle  of  Waterloo  in 
1815,  Napoleon  performed  prodigies  of  law  and  order, 
7  97 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

stable  government,  public  solvency,  commercial  and 
industrial  prosperity,  internal  communication  of  roads 
and  canals  that  so  amazed  the  rest  of  the  world, 
that  they  have  hardly  yet  been  able  to  grasp  the  facts. 
He  placed  his  relatives  and  favorite  generals  on  the 
thrones  of  Spain,  Holland  and  Scandinavia.  He  ex 
tended  his  conquests  to  the  Pyramids  of  the  Nile  and 
to  Palestine.  He  established  a  republic  in  northern 
Italy.  He  had  prepared  under  his  direction  the  code 
of  laws  that  is  known  by  his  name.  He  enforced  it  on 
the  Germanic  provinces,  where  it  still  remains.  It  is 
still  the  law  of  France,  and  of  the  American  State  of 
Louisiana.  ' 

His  guiding  principles  were  quite  simple.  The  mobs, 
confusion  and  murderous  doings  in  France  he  repressed 
with  artillery  and  a  military  organization  and  skill 
unequalled  up  to  his  time,  and  perhaps  never  equalled. 
France  became  the  safest  place  in  the  world.  That 
done,  he  took  up  some  of  the  sound  ideas  of  the  Revo 
lution,  and  made  them  orderly  and  respectable.  He 
abolished  root  and  branch  the  aristocratic  system,  the 
ancient  regime,  as  it  was  called,  with  all  its  absurdities, 
tyranny,  degeneracy,  and  profligacy  which  had  con 
trolled  everything  and  caused  the  Revolution.  He  made 
merit  the  test  of  every  office  in  the  government  service, 
where  before  the  test  had  been  birth  and  rank.  Even 
in  the  navy  no  one  could  become  an  officer  without  a 
pedigree.  But  under  Napoleon  the  lowest  peasant  could 
become  a  general  or  secretary  of  state  if  he  showed 
capacity  for  a  general's  or  a  statesman's  work. 

Napoleon's  armies  which  conquered  all  Continental 
Europe  were  organized  on  this  basis,  and  their  enthusi 
asm,  devotion  and  courage  have,  it  is  generally  supposed, 
never  been  equalled  except  perhaps  in  the  modern  armies 
of  Japan.  Indeed  the  whole  French  nation  almost  went 
out  of  their  minds  with  enthusiasm  and  devotion  when 
they  discovered  that  not  only  were  anarchy,  cruelty, 
torture,  injustice,  and  wholesale  executions  stopped,  but 

98 


THE  WAR  OF  1812 

that  preferment  in  the  whole  government  service,  civil 
and  military,  had,  in  perfect  good  faith,  been  thrown 
open  to  the  whole  population,  and  that  all  the  feudal 
absurdities  of  the  middle  ages,  the  crushing  taxation, 
and  the  restraints  on  trade,  commerce  and  industry  were 
gone  never  to  return. 

This  was  Napoleon's  understanding  and  carrying 
out  of  the  doctrine  of  equality,  which  had  been  so  much 
talked  of  before  his  time,  but  never  put  in  practice. 
Equality,  as  he  enforced  it,  meant  equality  before  the 
law  for  rich  and  poor  alike,  freedom  from  class  oppres 
sion  and  governmental  oppression,  and  equality  of  op 
portunity  based  on  merit  and  efficiency,  so  far  as  such 
opportunity  could  be  given  by  laws. 

He  did  not  believe  that  the  French  people  were  at 
that  time  capable  of  conducting  a  purely  Republican  or 
Democratic  form  of  government,  although  their  admira 
tion  for  such  forms  in  speech  and  writing  had  been  very 
great.  He  believed  that  their  excitable  temperaments, 
totally  unaccustomed  to  self-government,  must  be  kept 
in  order  for  a  long  time  by  military  force,  and  he  cer 
tainly  lived  up  to  this  belief.  He  thought,  however, 
that  they  were  competent  to  live  under  a  modified  or 
monarchical  Republicanism ;  and  in  the  offices  of  almost 
absolute  power  which  he  held,  whether  called  First 
Consul  or  Emperor,  he  always  submitted  himself  as  a 
candidate  to  the  vote  of  the  whole  people  and  was  elected 
in  every  instance  by  overwhelming  majorities.  He  also 
established  a  legislative  assembly  of  moderate  authority. 

The  success  of  this  semi-Republicanism  was  unques 
tionably  wonderful  for  half  a  generation.  It  reju 
venated  France.  The  people  had  never  been  so  prosperous 
and  happy.  But  the  more  successful  it  was  the  more 
the  allies,  with  England  and  Austria  at  their  head, 
were  determined  to  destroy  it.  It  meant,  they  believed, 
sure  ruin  for  their  civil  order  and  political  systems.  An 
elective  head  of  a  nation,  and  not  only  elected,  but  him 
self  of  obscure  birth,  without  pedigree  or  legitimacy 

99 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

from  the  divine  right  of  kings,  does  not  trouble  or  excite 
us  very  much  now;  but  at  that  time  it  seemed  to  most 
Europeans  to  cut  at  the  roots  of  their  most  cherished 
political  and  even  religious  principles. 

The  feeling  in  this  country  toward  Napoleon  has, 
perhaps,  been  too  much  influenced  by  what  has  been 
written  about  him  in  England,  where  he  was  held  up  to 
universal  execration  as  a  monster  of  infamy.  It  is 
difficult  to  conceive  of  a  crime  that  has  not  been  imputed 
to  him.  He  was  described  as  a  murderer  and  an 
assassin  with  ability  only  to  corrupt  and  mislead  the 
French  people,  and  in  private  life  habitually  addicted 
to  the  most  unnamable  debaucheries  and  the  lowest  vices. 

His  followers  laughed  at  these  charges,  and  when 
he  himself  read  the  books  and  pamphlets  containing 
them,  he  also  laughed  and  asked,  "  How  could  I  get 
time  for  these  things  ?  "  In  the  intimate  descriptions 
of  him  by  his  friends,  he  appears  as  a  most  abstemious 
man  of  well-regulated  life  and  of  a  capacity  for  work 
and  for  going  without  sleep,  whether  in  the  saddle  or 
at  his  desk,  almost  surpassing  belief.  If  in  addition  to 
this  he  had  also  such  a  capacity  for  debauchery  as  is 
described,  he  was  certainly  a  great  deal  more  than 
human. 

Among  people  of  moderate  opinions,  who  reject  the 
personal  attacks  upon  him,  one  of  the  weak  points  of 
his  career  seems  to  have  been  that  he  had  a  thirst  for 
conquest;  that  he  was  not  content  merely  to  defend 
France  from  her  enemies;  that  he  intended  to  conquer 
the  whole  civilized  world  and  turn  it  into  his  private 
empire,  where  he  could  enforce  his  famous  code  and 
carry  out  his  ideals  of  industrial  Republicanism  and 
equality  of  opportunity  for  the  masses.  His  reply  to 
this  was  that  he  had  often  tried  to  stop  the  wars,  had 
sometimes  succeeded,  but  that  the  allies,  jealous  of  the 
prosperity  of  France,  had  begun  the  wars  again;  that 
they  would  not  let  either  him  or  France  alone,  and  that 
to  protect  her  he  must  surround  her  by  a  circle  of  con- 

100 


THE  WAR  OF  1812 

quered  country.  But  this  question'  raises  the  whole 
history  of  his  career,  will  possibly  never  be  settled 
and  certainly  cannot  be  discussed  here. 

It  has  been  thought  also  to  have  been  one  of  his 
weaknesses  that  although  he  abolished  the  old  French 
aristocracy,  yet  towards  the  end  of  his  career  he  estab 
lished  another  one  composed  of  his  own  successful  gen 
erals  and  statesmen;  and  while  this  aristocracy  pro 
fessed  to  be  one  of  merit,  recruited  from  the  middle 
classes,  like  the  English  aristocracy,  yet  it  is  supposed 
to  be  doubtful  if  that  method  of  recruiting  it  could  have 
been  kept  up  in  France. 

Although  he  was  an  elected  Emperor,  he  was  so 
ambitious  to  perpetuate  his  family  in  that  office,  that  be 
cause  she  was  childless,  he  divorced  himself  from  his 
wife  Josephine,  the  only  woman  he  ever  loved,  and 
married  a  daughter  of  his  arch  enemy,  the  Emperor  of 
Austria ;  and  this  divorce  from  Josephine,  some  of  his 
greatest  admirers  have  found  it  hard  to  forgive.  The 
execution  of  the  Duke  d'Enghien,  a  loyalist  of  the  old 
aristocracy,  was  continually  brought  up  against  him  as 
an  instance  of  his  cold-blooded  cruelty,  although  it  is 
probable  that,  the  execution  having  been  done  without 
his  knowledge,  he  haughtily  refused,  as  was  his  prac 
tice,  to  repudiate  the  work  of  his  subordinates. 
•"sTAtl  these  things,  the  vast  armies  of  four  and  five 
hundred  thousand  men  on  each  side  that  swept  over  the 
whole  continent  of  Europe,  and  crossed  and  recrossed 
the  snows  of  the  Alps,  for  fifteen  years ;  the  marvellous 
strategy  and  tactics  unknown  before  in  the  military  art, 
the  stupendous  battles — Austerlitz,  Wagram,  Hohenlin- 
den — the  unexpected  resourcefulness  of  the  French  peo 
ple,  who  seemed  as  if  they  would  be  able  to  breed  boys 
for  endless  slaughter  and  supply  war  material  and  money 
forever;  all  these  were  the  great  events  of  European 
history  and  the  subject  of  continual  discussion  during 
Webster's  youth  and  early  manhood.^ 

Among  American  political  parties,  the  Federalists 
101 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

were  opposed  to  the  French  Revolution,  mistrusted  its 
ideas,  mistrusted  Napoleon  and  echoed  the  English 
hatred  of  him  to  the  letter.^  Among  our  conservative 
classes  the  common  saying  was  that  England  was  the 
champion  of  civilization  against  the  degradation  of 
democracy.  For  many  years  after  the  Napoleonic  wars 
were  over,  this  violent  feeling  against  France  remained. 
To  denounce  Napoleon  was  an  essential  badge  of  respec 
tability  in  many  parts  of  the  country,  strongly  Federal 
ist  ;  and  long  after  Napoleon's  death,  the  first  book  pub- 
/  lished  in  his  favor  was  denounced  from  the  pulpit. 

^  The  Democratic  party  favored  France;  they  were 
in  sympathy  with  many  of  the  doctrines  of  the  French 
Revolution  and  they  had  no  fears  of  the  spread  of 
French  anarchy.  They  believed  that  beneath  all  Na 
poleon's  conquests  and  absolutism  there  was  an  honest 
purpose  on  the  side  of  human  rights  and  modern  prog 
ress.  They  were  enthusiastic  over  the  recollection  of 
the  assistance  France  had  given  us  in  our  own  Revo 
lution;  they  insisted  that  we  owed  her  a  debt  of  grati 
tude;  and  during  Washington's  administration  he  and 
the  Federalists  had  with  difficulty  prevented  Jefferson 
and  his  party  from  forcing  us  into  giving  active  help 
to  the  French  nation  against  Great  Britain  and  the  allies. 
Webster  accepted,  of  course,  the  Federalist  view  of 
the  Napoleonic  wars  >  and,  perhaps,  his  most  positive 
statement  on  the  subject  was  in  that  Fourth  of  July 
oration  which  he  delivered  when  a  boy  in  college/^  Na 
poleon  at  that  time  had  returned  from  Egypt  and  had 
become  the  supreme  ruler  of  France;  and  young  Web- 

,  ster  in  the  regulation  Federalist  swing  denounced  fair 
France  and  described  her  hero  as  "  the  gasconading 
pilgrim  of  Egypt." 

The  boy  was,  of  course,  merely  repeating  what  he 
had  been  taught.  That  Napoleon  as  a  soldier  was  a 
mere  lucky  braggart,  was  naturally  the  first  opinion  of 
his  skill,  especially  among  his  opponents ;  and  possibly 
Webster  never  lived  long  enough  to  reach  the  impartial 

102 


THE  WAR  OF  1812 

point  of  view   where  he  could  fully  appreciate  those 
wonders  of  strategy  and  tactics. 

In  his  later  years  Webster  was  not  a  violent  partisan, 
and  indeed  was  famous  for  his  independence  in  politics. 
But  he  was  brought  up  a  very  strict  partisan.  His 
father  was  of  that  type ;  and  once,  it  is  said,  being  taken 
sick  in  a  Democratic  town  had  himself  removed  lest  he 
should  die  in  such  pollution. 

the  year  1806,  when  Webster,  twenty-four  years 
d,  delivered  his  Fourth  of  July  oration  at  Concord, 
our  relations  to  England  and  France  were  approaching 
a  crisis.  Ever  since  the  French  Revolution  began  and 
involved  England  and  all  the  nations  of  Europe  in  war 
there  had  been  a  decided  advantage  in  our  favor,  because 
the  more  the  European  nations  became  involved  in  the 
contest  the  more  the  carrying  trade  of  the  world  was 
thrown  into  the  hands  of  American  ship  owners. 
America  became  the  greatest  neutral  trader.  She  car 
ried  supplies  of  all  sorts  to  the  belligerents,  and  also  to 
their  colonies.  American  enterprise  had  not  been  turned  , 
inwards  to  develop  manufacturing,  canals,  railroads,  and 
mining.  We  had  not  yet  reached  the  Rocky  Mountains. 
Our  energy,  indeed,  had  only  just  crossed  the  Alle- 
ghenies.  Ships  and  cargoes  and  the  numerous  interests 
dependent  on  them  were  the  most  important  and  im 
pressive  source  of  money  making;  and  in  1806  this 
trade  and  navigation  had  been  steadily  increased  for 
nearly  fifteen  years  by  the  French  Revolution  and  the 
Napoleonic  wars.  Our  merchant  vessels  crossed  the 
Indian  Ocean  and  the  Pacific ;  our  whalers  sought  their 
game  from  the  equator  to  the  poles  ;  the  stars  and  stripes 
though  only  a  generation  old  was  seen  in  every  climate ; 
we  had  acquired  a  large  part  of  the  carrying  trade  of 
the  world,  and  were  pressing  close  upon  England's 
dominion  of  the  seas. 

This  shipping  interest  was  particularly  prosperous 
in  New  England,  and  is  sometimes  described  as  if  that 
were  the  sole  seat  of  it,  probably  because  New  England 

103 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

became  more  aggressive  in  defending  it.  But  the  sea 
faring  prosperity  was  also  to  be  found  in  New  York, 
and  on  the  Delaware,  was  decidedly  prosperous  in  the 
Chesapeake,  and  extended  to  the  ports  of  Charleston 
and  Savannah. 

That  this  prosperity  should  rouse  the  hostility  of  both 
England  and  France  was  natural.  England  would  like 
to  check  it  because  it  was  gradually  depriving  her  of  her 
imperial  attribute  of  the  carrying  trade  of  the  world 
and  was  supplying  her  enemy,  France,  with  the  neces 
saries  of  life.  France  would  like  to  check  it  because  it 
was  supplying  England  with  the  necessaries  of  life,  and 
because  Napoleon  shrewdly  saw  in  it  a  chance  to  draw 
America  to  his  side  and  make  her  an  enemy  of  England. 
P  Ever  since  our  Revolution,  England  as  mistress  of 
trie  seas  had  claimed  and  exercised  what  she  called  her 
right  of  seizing  our  sailors  when  found  ashore  by  her 
press  gangs,  and  forcing  them  to  serve  in  her  men-of- 
war  ;  and  also  the  supposed  right  of  stopping  our  mer 
chant  vessels,  and  even  our  men-of-war,  and  searching 
them  for  British  subjects  which,  when  found,  she  carried 
off  to  serve  in  her  own  ships.  She  denied  what  is  now 
called  the  right  of  expatriation.  Once  a  British  subject, 
always  a  British  subject,  was  her  doctrine,  and  her 
subjects  could  be  taken  by  her  wherever  found. 

The  press  gang  was  a  method  of  recruiting  her  navy 
authorized  by  act  of  Parliament.  She  had  always  had 
difficulty  in  recruiting  both  her  army  and  navy;  and 
the  army  had  been  often  recruited  by  hiring  foreign 
mercenaries  as  in  the  case  of  the  Hessians  in  our  Revo 
lution.  The  press  gang  was  no  doubt  lawful  enough 
from  her  own  point  of  view,  when  used  on  her  own 
subjects  in  her  own  ports.  But  when  used  on  our  citi 
zens  in  foreign  ports,  it  was  an  outrage  and  a  violation 
of  public  law  and  human  rights  that  justified  war. 

In  other  words,  as  we  had  submitted  to  these  out 
rages  for  many  years,  we  had  not  yet  attained  our  full 
national  independence ;  or  if  we  may  be  said  to  have  had 

104 


THE  WAR  OF  1812 

independence  on  the  land,  we  certainly  did  not  have  it 
on  the  ocean.  Napoleon  saw  in  this  an  opportunity 
to  arouse  us  for  his  own  advantage  by  suggesting  that 
if  we  wanted  him  to  treat  our  merchant  vessels  with  re 
spect  and  admit  them  to  trade  in  French  ports,  we  must 
compel  Great  Britain  to  give  us  our  rights  on  the  high 
seas.  To  the  Federalists  this  seemed  mere  low  cunning 
on  his  part  to  embroil  us  with  England;  but  to  the 
Democrats  it  was  a  statesmanlike  taking  of  an  oppor 
tunity  and  a  very  proper  appeal  to  the  manhood  of 
Americans  and  all  other  neutral  nations. 

At  this  time,  however,  in  the  year  1806,  the  Federal 
ists  were  as  severe  as  the  Democrats  in  denouncing  Eng 
land  for  violating  by  search  and  impressment  our  rights 
upon  the  ocean;  and  Webster  in  his  Concord  address 
of  that  year  said  more  severe  things  of  the  English 
than  he  ever  said  of  them  again  in  all  the  rest  of  his 
life.  But  both  he  and  the  Federalists  were  on  the  eve 
of  a  change  in  this  respect,  a  change  which  had  a  pro 
found  influence  upon  the  fortunes  of  both  of  them. 

Napoleon  had  overrun  Prussia  and  ordered  British 
vessels  excluded  from  its  ports ;  and  in  May,  1806, 
Great  Britain  by  an  order  in  council  had  declared  a 
blockade  of  the  coasts  of  Prussia  and  also  of  the  coast 
of  France  from  Ostend  to  the  mouth  of  the  Seine. 
This  was  to  cut  off  neutrals,  particularly  America,  from 
trading  to  those  ports  and  supplying  the  Napoleonic 
armies.  But  it  was  a  mere  paper  blockade,  and  did  not 
fulfil  the  requirement  of  international  law,  that  a  block 
ade,  to  be  respected  by  other  nations,  must  be  an  actual 
one.  England,  however,  paid  little  attention  to  inter 
national  law  in  those  days,  and  considered  herself  en 
titled,  as  mistress  of  the  seas,  to  seize  any  neutral  that 
she  believed  had  violated  this  mere  paper  proclamation. 

Napoleon  retaliated  by  what  became  known  as  the 
Berlin  decree,  which  was  another  paper  proclamation 
blockading  the  British  Islands  and  declaring  that  no 
vessel  of  any  nation  touching  at  British  ports  or  at  a 

105 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

British  colony,  should  be  allowed  to  enter  French 
harbors. 

He,  too,  would  seize  American  vessels  believed  to 
have  violated  this  decree.  England  replied  by  another 
order  in  council  in  January,  1807,  excluding  all  neutral 
vessels  from  trading  with  any  port  of  France  or  her 
allies  from  which  British  vessels  were  excluded.  And 
to  this  Napoleon  replied  by  the  famous  Milan  decree 
by  which  any  vessel  that  had  allowed  itself  to  be 
searched  by  a  British  cruiser  was  declared  to  have  lost 
its  neutral  character,  and  any  vessel  sailing  between 
British  ports  should  also  lose  its  neutral  character,  and 
become  lawful  prize. 

This  was  to  arouse  America  into  immediate  hostility 
or  war  with  England  and  turn  her  into  an  ally  of  France. 
Napoleon  declared  that  he  would  maintain  these  severe 
measures  against  all  neutral  nations  until  each  one 
roused  itself  to  throw  off  British  tyranny  on  the  sea. 
America  was,  however,  the  only  neutral  nation  of  im 
portance.  All  the  rest  were  involved  in  the  great  strug 
gle  over  Napoleon's  conquests,  liberty,  and  equality.1 

Such,  in  brief,  were  the  famous  French  Decrees  and 
British  Orders  in  Council,  which  brought  on  the  War 
of  1812.  They  were  calculated  to  ruin  our  trade  and 
drive  us  from  the  ocean,  and  on  the  ocean  they  made 
us  a  dependency  of  both  France  and  England.  In  order 
to  trade  with  any  port  on  the  continent  of  Europe  an 
American  vessel  must  first  touch  at  a  British  port  and 
pay  taxes  on  her  cargo.  But  if  she  did  this  she  was 
liable  to  be  seized  and  sold  by  Napoleon's  government. 

American  ships  were  being  rapidly  seized  by  either 

1  Napoleon  had  previously  made  a  clever  move  with  Louisi 
ana,  the  great  territory  lying  between  the  Mississippi  River 
and  the  Rocky  Mountains.  He  bought  it  from  Spain  in  1800, 
and  intended  to  make  it  a  strong  French  colony.  But  learn 
ing  in  1803  that  England  intended  to  attack  it  he  sold  it  to  us 
through  the  Democratic  administration  of  Jefferson,  thus  pre 
venting  England  getting  it  and  securing  the  favorable  regard  of 
the  American  Democrats. 

106 


THE  WAR  OF  1812 

England  or  France  under  this  new  system ;  and  in  June, 
1807,  an  event  occurred  close  at  home,  that  nearly 
brought  on  the  war  in  that  year.  The  British  frigate 
Leopard  found  the  United  States  frigate  Chesapeake 
off  the  coast  of  Virginia,  and  being  more  powerful  in 
men  and  guns,  compelled  her  to  give  up  four  sailors. 

It  almost  precipitated  war  at  once.  Our  people 
would  probably  have  supported  any  immediate  act  of 
retaliation.  But  President  Jefferson  and  the  cooler 
heads  of  the  dominant  party  were  restrained  by  the 
thought  of  our  weakness  and  our  little  navy  in  which 
neither  party,  at  that  time,  had  any  confidence ;  for  Eng 
land  had  a  thousand  warships,  and  we  had  just  twelve. 
It  is  true  that  England's  frigates  were  involved  in  the 
vast  conflict  of  Europe ;  but  it  seemed  as  if  she  might 
easily  spare  twenty-five  or  thirty  to  destroy  our  twelve. 
Jefferson,  however,  demanded  reparation  for  the  out 
rage,  and  he  ordered  all  British  war  vessels  to  leave  the 
waters  of  the  United  States.  Congress  was  summoned 
in  special  session,  and  on  his  recommendation  passed 
the  embargo  act  indefinitely  prohibiting  the  departure  of 
any  vessel  from  the  United  States  for  a  foreign  port. 

An  embargo  was  not  a  new  idea.  There  had  been 
one  in  Washington's  administration,  and  several  meas 
ures  of  a  similar  restrictive  character  in  the  adminis 
tration  of  John  Adams.  It  was  a  good  device  to  pro 
tect  shipping,  keep  enterprising  captains  and  owners 
from  rushing  into  danger  until  conditions  could  be 
more  accurately  known.  This  particular  one,  however, 
was  intended  not  merely  to  protect  our  vessels,  but  to 
injure  England's  trade  and  prevent  her  receiving  sup 
plies.  It  was  a  retaliation  in  place  of  war.  The  Demo 
crats  wished  to  avoid  war  or  postpone  it  if  it  possibly 
could  be  postponed.  The  party  was  composed  princi 
pally  of  the  farming  element  of  the  population.  They 
had  adopted  Jefferson's  economical  principles.  They 
wished  to  pay  off  the  national  debt.  They  had  no  ships 
to  be  injured  by  the  embargo.  They  wished  to  avoid 

107 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

the  expense  of  increasing  the  navy  and  they  had  no 
confidence  in  the  navy  as  it  was. 

;xThe  French  Decrees,  the  British  Orders  in  Council, 
and  the  embargo  had  now  changed  the  position  of  the 
Federalists,  who  were  the  ship-owning  element  of  the 
population.  They  were  now  driven  into  a  position  which 
in  the  end  ruined  them  as  a  political  party.  They  had 
been  a  great  and  noble  party  in  their  time.  The  national 
government  is  to  this  hour  conducted  on  the  principles 
and  methods  which  were  laid  down  by  them  in  the  days 
of  their  power.  Believing  America  incapable  of  making 
war  upon  both  England  and  France,  or  upon  either  of 
them,  they  saw  in  the  decrees  and  orders  more  danger 
from  France  than  from  England.  Their  ships,  they  be 
lieved,  were  safer  under  English  aggressions  than  under 
French  aggressions ;  and  the  greatest  danger  of  all  had 
come,  they  said,  from  our  own  Congress,  whose  em 
bargo  had  tied  up  every  one  of  their  vessels  to  rot 
indefinitely  by  the  wharves. 

Webster  took  this  view  and  in  his  pamphlet  on  the 
embargo,  written  in  1808,  changed  from  the  enemy  of 
England  to  her  friend.  The  embargo,  he  argued,  was 
unconstitutional  because  unlimited  in  time.  An  em 
bargo  for  a  definite  period  of  a  few  months  based  on 
the  seven  or  eight  words  in  the  Constitution  giving 
Congress  power  "  to  regulate  commerce,"  was  no  doubt 
allowable.  But  Congress  had  not  been  given  power  to 
destroy  commerce  by  an  indefinite  embargo.  The  em 
bargo  was  not  intended  to  warn  merchants,  which  was 
its  only  proper  sphere.  It  was  intended  by  the  Demo 
crats  as  a  war  measure  against  England.  It  was  aimed 
to  favor  France  and  take  sides  with  her  against  Eng 
land.  It  was  intended  to  force  on  a  war  with  Eng 
land.  The  Democrats  wanted  a  British  war  and  a 
French  alliance.  He  enumerated  a  dozen  or  more  places 
besides  Sweden  with  which  American  vessels  could  still 
trade  under  the  British  Orders  in  Council.  But  the 
embargo  had  cut  them  off  from  these ;  and  the  embargo 

108 


THE  WAR  OF  1812 

was  therefore  a  worse  enemy  of  the  American  ship 
owner  than  England. 

In  short,  the  embargo  set  New  England  indignation 
in  a  flame ;  and  the  arguments  were  in  time  piled  up  by 
maturer  hands  than  Webster's.  That  our  ships  should 
be  seized  and  sold  by  England  and  France  was  bad 
enough ;  but  it  was  worse  for  our  own  government  to 
seize  them  and  let  them  rot  by  the  wall.  An  idle  ship 
is  more  ruinous  than  a  captured  one,  because  it  must 
be  kept  in  repair.  To  render  valueless  by  a  stroke  of  the 
pen  thousands  of  American  vessels,  eight  hundred  thou 
sand  tons  of  shipping,  as  was  said  at  the  time,  to  de 
prive  of  a  livelihood  the  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men, 
women  and  children  dependent  on  those  vessels,  was  a 
worse  blow  than  a  foreign  enemy  would  give. 

It  hit  New  England  hardest  of  all ;  for  in  that  region 
there  were  six  towns  that  owned  more  than  a  third  of 
the  tonnage  of  'the  Union ;  and  as  the  Southern  people 
talked  secession  when  it  was  proposed  to  deprive  them 
by  a  stroke  of  the  pen  of  millions  of  dollars'  worth  of 
slaves,  so  the  New  Englanders  now  talked  of  secession 
from  the  Union  when  they  saw  their  fortunes  and  liveli 
hoods  swept  away  by  a  proclamation,  and  the  noble 
and  romantic  ships,  the  pride  of  their  lives,  laid  up  as 
useless  hulks. 

The  year  1808  following  the  passage  of  the  embargo 
act  was  Presidential  election  year.  Jefferson  was  to  go 
out  of  office,  and  Webster,  as  a  good  Federalist,  wrote 
his  pamphlet  against  the  embargo  to  help  what  he  be 
lieved  to  be  the  true  cause. 

One  might  have  supposed  that  his  party  would  have 
won;  for  how  could  the  Democrats  or  any  political 
party  survive  a  policy  of  such  financial  ruin  as  the  Fed 
eralists  described  the  embargo  act  to  be  ?  The  Federalist 
candidates  were  C.  C.  Pinckney,  of  South  Carolina,  and 
Rufus  King,  of  New  York,  selected  after  the  manner 
of  the  time,  one  from  the  South  and  the  other  from  the 
North,  so  as  to  catch  the  Federalists'  votes  of  both  sec- 

109 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

tions.  But  they  received  only  forty-seven  of  the  one 
hundred  and  seventy-six  electoral  votes,  showing  how 
deeply  our  people  felt  the  outrages  and  insults  of  what 
had  once  been  our  mother  country,  and  how  strongly 
committed  they  were  to  the  Democratic  policy  of  retalia 
tion  upon  England  for  her  outrages.  They  had  full 
confidence  that  the  Democrats,  no  matter  what  mistakes 
they  might  make,  were  the  only  party  that  in  the  end 
could  be  trusted  to  defend  the  honor  of  the  nation. 

The  Federalists,  it  should  be  said  here,  had  been 

now  for  some  time  in  opposition.     Still  strong  in  the 

seaport  towns,  especially  in  New  England,  they  had  in 

v.  V  the  country  at  large  become  the  minority.     Their  day 

of  power  had  been  Washington's  two  administrations 

and  the  administration  of  John  Adams,  ending  in  1801. 

Then  Jefferson  and  the  Democrats  went  in  and  were 

I    the  popular  and  powerful  party  for  sixteen  years.     So 

/    Webster  began  his  political  career  in  a  minority  party, 

/    growing  all  the  time  weaker  and  more  unpopular ;  and 

for  its  misdeeds  he  was  called  to  severe  account  in  the 

famous  debate  with  Hayne;  and  indeed  those  misdeeds 

clung  to  him  in  one  way  or  another  all  his  life. 

As  an  injury  to  England,  the  embargo  was  not  a 
success.  It  did  not  compel  a  withdrawal  of  the  Orders 
in  Council.  British  manufacturers  and  merchants  were 
injured  by  the  loss  of  the  American  trade,  as  they  after 
wards  testified  before  Parliament.  But  British  ship 
owners  rather  liked  the  embargo  because  it  tended  to 
leave  the  ocean-carrying  trade  to  their  vessels.  It  lasted 
two  years,  unquestionably  inflicting  heavy  losses  on  all 
our  shipping  interests  and  even  injuring  the  farmers  of 
the  Democratic  party  who  found  their  crops  and  produce 
sinking  in  value  because  they  could  not  be  carried  to 
foreign  countries  to  be  sold.  In  1809  it  was  repealed, 
largely  because  it  seemed  likely  to  break  up  the  Union. 
It  was  replaced  by  the  non-intercourse  act  which  pro 
hibited  American  ships  from  trading  with  Great  Britain 
or  France  while  their  offensive  measures  continued, 

no 


THE  WAR  OF  1812 

but  allowing  trade  with  other  nations.  This  was  less 
injurious  to  our  commerce  than  the  embargo,  but  how 
ever  much  it  may  have  injured  the  business  of  British 
manufacturers  and  merchants,  it  had  no  effect  in  com 
pelling  a  withdrawal  of  the  British  Orders  and  the 
French  Decrees.  It  was  repealed  in  1810,  and  Madison, 
who  was  now  President,  began  preparations  for  the  war 
with  England,  which  seemed  inevitable  and  could  no 
longer  be  postponed  by  embargoes  or  non-intercourse 
acts. 

As  stop-gaps  to  satisfy  our  people,  gain  time,  and 
lead  them  to  think  that  something  aggressive  was  being 
done,  the  embargo  and  the  non-intercourse  act,  no  doubt, 
served  a  purpose.  Their  defenders  always  said  that 
the  embargo  saved  our  whole  marine  from  annihilation 
and  our  merchants  from  universal  bankruptcy ;  for  if 
our  ships  had  been  allowed  to  go  out  they  would  have 
all  been  captured  and  the  loss  would  have  been  total  in 
stead  of  partial  and  temporary.  By  seizing  all  our  ships 
and  cargoes  and  imprisoning  the  crews  of  them,  the 
resources  of  England  and  France  would  have  been  aug 
mented  and  ourselves  enfeebled.  We  should  have  had 
all  the  calamities  of  war  without  any  of  its  advantages, 
and  would  then  have  been  forced  into  an  immediate 
war. 

With  the  stop-gaps  all  removed,  Congress  tried  an 
other  plan  which  was,  on  its  face,  an  attempt  to  entice 
either  France  or  England  to  take  our  side  of  the  contro 
versy.  An  act  was  passed  which  declared  that  if  either 
Great  Britain  or  France  would  revoke  her  offensive 
decrees,  our  non-intercourse  law  would  be  revived 
against  the  other  nation.  This  was  Napoleon's  oppor-^ 
tunity  and  he  announced  that  the  French  Decrees  would 
cease  to  operate  after  the  ist  of  November,  1810,  if 
the  English  should  revoke  their  Orders  and  renounce 
their  absurd  principle  of  blockade  or  the  Americans 
should  cause  their  rights  to  be  respected  by  the  English. 

This  diplomatic  statement,  which  committed  France 
in 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

to  nothing,  was  conveyed  in  a  mere  note  to  the  Ameri 
can  minister  and  was  all  he  had  to  show  the  British 
government  when  he  made  demand  upon  them.  They 
refused  to  repeal  their  Orders  until  better  proof  of  the 
French  repeal  was  furnished.  President  Madison,  how 
ever,  accepted  the  note  as  a  repeal  of  the  French  Decrees, 
declared  our  trade  with  France  opened  and  our  trade 
with  England  closed  after  the  2d  of  February,  1811. 
Napoleon,  when  he  heard  of  this,  directed  his  cruisers 
to  continue  to  take  American  vessels  violating  the  De 
crees  ;  but  his  prize  courts  were  not  to  pass  upon  these 
captures  until  the  2d  of  February,  1811,  when  he  would 
more  explicitly  decide  the  question. 

The  2d  of  February  came  and  passed,  leaving  the 
controversy  unchanged.  On  the  28th  of  April  Napo 
leon  repealed  the  Decrees,  but  in  so  obscure  a  way  that 
the  news  of  it  was  more  than  a  year  in  reaching  America 
and  England.  Many  believed  that  there  never  was  such 
a  repeal ;  and  in  spite  of  the  repeal  Napoleon's  cruisers 
continued  to  seize  our  vessels  for  violating  the  Decrees. 
In  May  the  American  frigate  President,  in  attempting 
to  ascertain  the  nationality  of  the  British  cruiser  Little 
Belt,  brought  on  an  engagement  in  which  the  American 
vessel,  being  superior  in  guns  and  men,  was  the  victor. 

This  was  war.  In  fact,  if  we  couple  with  this  en 
gagement  the  continuous  seizure  of  our  ships  by  Eng 
land  and  the  capture  of  our  frigate  Chesapeake  by  the 
Leopard  four  years  before,  a  state  of  war  had  existed 
between  us  and  England  for  a  long  time.  Nevertheless, 
our  representatives  in  Europe  kept  beating  over  the  same 
old  ground  with  the  French  and  English  diplomats  for 
another  year,  going  round  and  round  and  round  the 
same  old  point,  whether  the  French  Decrees  had  really 
been  repealed.  Nothing  was  accomplished.  Neither 
England  nor  Napoleon  had  the  slightest  intention  of 
allowing  anything  to  be  accomplished,  and  at  the  end 
of  the  year,  on  the  i8th  of  June,  1812,  Congressfor- 
mally  declared  war  against  England,  or  rather  formally 

112 


THE  WAR  OF  1812 

recognized  the  war  which  had  existed  for  some  time. 
Five  days  after  the  declaration  of  war  the  British  Orders 
in  Council  were  repealed,  apparently  on  the  ground  that 
the  British  government  had  at  last  learned  that  the 
French  Decrees  had  been  repealed  the  year  before  in 
April,  1811  ;  but  the  war  went  on  for  two  years. 

Like  the  rest  of  the  Federalists,  Webster  remained 


-an_Qj)Dpnent  of  the  war  all  t&rough  its  rniirsg.    He  bel 

lieved  it  unnecessary  and  unjust;  he  believed  that  the 
controversies  over  the  orders  and  decrees  and  the 
right  of  search  could  have  been  settled  by  increasing 
our  navy  or  by  peaceful  means  without  impoverishing 
the  whole  mercantile  class. 

The  Federalist  commercial  interest  was  very  sensi 
tive  about  peace.  They  believed  that  peace  was  abso 
lutely  essential  to  the  advancement  of  the  American 
marine,  which  our  small  navy  would  be  utterly  unable 
to  protect  in  a  war.  If  we  went  to  war  with  a  Euro 
pean  power,  if  we  even  incurrred  the  enmity  of  such  a 
power,  the  millions  of  dollars'  worth  of  American  prop 
erty  afloat  would  be  ruined.  Above  all  things,  we  must 
not  provoke  the  enmity  of  that  greatest  of  naval  powers, 
our  rival  in  the  carrying  trade,  Great  Britain.  It  might 
be  true  that  she  at  times  treated  us  with  contempt,  that 
she  searched  our  ships  and  took  from  them  the  sailors 
whom  she  believed  to  be  her  subjects  and  added  them 
to  her  own  crews,  that  she  would  seize  our  ships  if  she 
found  them  trading  with  her  enemies,  that,  in  short, 
she  denied  to  us  on  the  ocean  that  independence  that  we 
had  with  difficulty  wrested  from  her  on  the  land.  All 
these  things,  reasoned  the  Federalists,  might  be  unfor- 
tunate  ;  but  we  must  submit  to  them  a  while  longer  ;  we 
were  not  powerful  enough  to  resist  them.  If  we  could 
only  keep  the  peace  a  while  longer  our  commerce  and 
trade  would  grow  to  such  proportions  and  power  that 
all  such  questions  would  settle  themselves  by  the  natural 
force  of  events. 

The  Massachusetts  Federalists  worked  themselves  up 
8  113 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

to  such  a  high  argument  and  so  habituated  themselves 
to  belittling  the  injuries  England  had  done  us  that 
they  finally  announced  that  only  eleven  Massachusetts 
sailors  had  been  impressed  on  board  British  vessels. 
Why  should  the  whole  country  go  to  war  about  eleven 
vagabond  sailors,  who  were  probably  foreigners  after 
all,  and  originally  natives  of  England,  Ireland  or  Scot 
land? 

The  embargo,  said  the  New  England  Federalists, 
was  a  conspiracy  between  the  South  and  the  West  to 
ruin  the  East.  The  South  and  West  despised  the  com 
merce  of  the  East  and  were  jealous  of  its  power.  The 
embargo  had  been  dictated  by  France  out  of  hostility 
to  England  that  "  had  done  our  commerce  no  essential 
injury."  England  was  "  the  bulwark  of  our  holy  re 
ligion."  England  was  struggling  for  her  salvation, 
"  fighting  the  battles  of  Christendom  against  the  French 
anti-Christ  and  his  host."  2 

Before  the  embargo  on  their  commerce,  the  Federal 
ists  had  on  numerous  occasions  denounced  England's 
impressment  of  our  sailors  and  searching  of  our  ships, 
and  advocated  making  war  upon  her.  But  now  Feder 
alist  ship-owners  came  forward  and  made  long  affidavits 
that  in  all  their  long  experience  they  had  never  had  any 
sailors  impressed  or  at  most  only  one  or  two.  But  there 
seems  to  have  been  overwhelming  evidence  the  other 
way.  By  the  investigations  of  Congress,  and  of  such 
distinguished  Federalists  as  Timothy  Pickering  and 
Rufus  King,  before  they  had  decided  to  turn  to  the 
English  side,  it  appeared  that  in  the  six  years  previous 
to  1810  there  had  been  4579  of  our  people  seized  by 
British  press  gangs,  of  which  1361  were  discharged, 
leaving  3218  detained  in  the  British  service.  In  less 
than  eighteen  months  from  March,  1803,  to  August, 
1804,  there  were,  by  British  admission,  1232  impress- 

2 Matthew  Carey,  "Olive  Branch,"  ;th  edition,  pp.  141, 
142,  145,  221,  223,  224. 

114 


THE  WAR  OF  1812 

ments  of  our  people  and  only  forty-nine  of  them  claimed 
by  England  as  British  subjects.3 

It  was  a  horrible  form  of  man-stealing  and  slavery. 
The  poor  fellows  were  imprisoned  on  British  warships 
for  life  or  for  years,  passed  from  one  ship  to  another, 
and  when  the  war  broke  out  compelled  to  fight  against 
their  own  country.  Parents,  relatives  and  friends  made 
efforts  for  rescue,  usually  unavailing.  It  was  as  bad 
as  the  enslavement  of  our  people  by  the  Moors  and 
Barbary  pirates.  To  save  our  sailors  from  impress 
ment  the  plan  was  adopted  of  furnishing  them  with  pro 
tections  or  passports,  identifying  them  as  American  citi 
zens.  But  when  they  presented  these  the  British  cap 
tains  tore  them  in  pieces  and  threw  them  overboard. 

"  I  told  him  I  did  not  belong  to  his  flag  and  would  do  no 
work  under  it.  He  then  ordered  my  legs  to  be  put  in  irons, 
and  the  next  morning  ordered  the  master-at-arms  to  take  me 
on  deck,  and  give  me  two  dozen  lashes ;  after  receiving  them, 
he  ordered  him  to  keep  me  in  irons,  and  gave  me  one  biscuit 
and  one  pint  of  water  for  twenty-four  hours.  After  keeping 
me  in  this  situation  one  week  I  was  brought  on  deck  and 
asked  by  Captain  Elliott  if  I  would  go  to  my  duty.  On  my 
refusing,  he  ordered  me  to  strip,  tied  me  up  a  second  time, 
and  gave  me  two  dozen  more,  and  kept  me  on  the  same  allow 
ance  another  week."  (Carey,  "Olive  Branch,"  7th  edition,  pp. 
214,  215.) 

This  man,  after  nine  weeks  of  torture,  finally  sub 
mitted,  was  wounded  in  an  action  with  a  French  frigate, 
and  after  three  years  of  servitude,  the  American  consul 
procured  his  discharge.  The  sufferings  these  men 
would  go  through  for  the  sentiment  of  the  flag  were 
astonishing.  Mere  jackies,  "  worthless  vagabonds," 
they  were,  nevertheless,  the  men  who,  by  their  industry 
and  skill,  had  created  the  vast  mercantile  wealth  on 
which  hundreds  of  American  families  were  living  in 
ease  and  luxury. 

8  Matthew  Carey,  "  Olive  Branch,"  7th  edition,  pp.  106- 
199,  225,  230,  214,  220,  231,  232,  and  table  preceding  title  page. 

US 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

When  called  upon  to  fight  an  American  vessel  they 
would  often  refuse,  or  go  to  the  captain  and  offer  to 
surrender  themselves  as  prisoners  of  war.  But  they 
were  usually  flogged  and  forced  back  to  their  places 
with  pistols  held  at  their  heads.  Our  poor  jacks  on  the 
Peacock,  however,  had  a  pleasant  revenge  when  they 
met  the  Hornet. 

"  After  the  Hornet  hoisted  American  colors,  he  and  the 
other  impressed  Americans  again  went  to  the  captain  of  the 
Peacock  and  asked  to  be  sent  below;  said  it  was  an  American 
ship ;  and  that  they  did  not  wish  to  fight  against  their  country. 
The  captain  ordered  us  to  our  quarters;  called  Midshipman 
Stone  to  do  his  duty ;  and  if  we  did  not  do  our  duty,  to  blow 
our  brains  out.  Aye,  aye,'  was  answered  by  Stone,  who  then 
held  a  pistol  at  my  breast,  and  ordered  us  to  our  places.  We 
then  continued  at  our  places  and  were  compelled  to  fight  till 
the  Peacock  struck;  and  we  were  liberated  after  about  two 
years  and  eight  months."  (Carey,  "Olive  Branch,"  7th  edi 
tion,  p.  216.) 

When  the  Constitution  took  the  Java,  thirteen  im 
pressed  Americans  were  found  on  board  of  her,  and, 
though  it  seems  like  an  exaggeration,  it  was  estimated 
by  the  American  consul  at  London,  that  altogether  Eng 
land  had  obtained  from  us  by  impressment,  14,000  men 
for  her  navy. 

Like  other  New  Englanders,  Webster  was  himself 
a  sufferer  from  the  embargo  and  other  retaliation  meas 
ures  of  the  Democrats.  His  legal  business,  like  the 
business  of  other  lawyers,  fell  to  a  low  ebb.  But  after 
his  embargo  pamphlet  he  took  no  part  in  politics  for 
four  years. 

In  1809  he  delivered  the  address  before  the  Phi 
Beta  Kappa  Society  of  Dartmouth  College.  With  his 
wife  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Mason  he  drove  by  easy  stages 
to  the  college  town  of  Hanover,  composing  his  oration 
at  the  inns  on  the  journey  or  during  the  drive  of  each 
day,  for  he  had  been  too  busy  with  the  law  before 
leaving  to  make  any  important  preparation.  The  ad 
dress  was  on  the  "  State  of  our  Literature ;  "  and  it  is 

116 


THE  WAR  OF  1812 

better  written  than  the  embargo  pamphlet.  It  shows 
original  thought,  and  also  the  change  of  style  "fHat 
association  with  Mason  was- bringing  about.  It  was  the 
sort  of  occasional  address,  the  forerunner  of  the  Ply 
mouth  and  Bunker  Hill  orations,  with  which  he  after 
wards  attained  such  distinction.  Not  the  equal  of  those 
orations  in  elaborate  oratory,  in  popular  appeal,  or  in 
number  of  words,  its  brevity,  nevertheless,  contains 
ideas  which  are  rather  more  interesting  to  the  cultivated 
mind  to-day  than  anything  in  those  famous  orations. 
Those  orations,  after  all,  in  order  to  be  popular,  had  to 
be  something  of  a  return  to  the  old  screeching  style  of 
oratory  which  Webster  in  his  heart  despised. 

Literature,  he  says  in  this  Phi  Beta  Kappa  address, 
cannot  spring  up  in  the  soil  of  uncultivated  minds. 
Learning  is  not  the  spontaneous,  self-planted  oak  of  the 
forest.  It  is  the  plant  of  our  gardens;  and  there  had 
not  yet  been  enough  garden  culture  for  it  in  America. 
There  must  be  a  demand  for  literature  before  it  will 
appear.  Genius  will  not  display  itself  unpatronized  and 
unregarded.  It  is  coy  and  will  be  wooed.  We  had  not 
yet  turned  our  energies  to  these  things  of  the  mind. 
Although  we  were  a  nation  of  farmers,  we  had  not  yet 
established  agricultural  societies  for  comparing  farmers' 
ideas.  We  had  no  historical  societies  to  preserve  the 
records  of  the  past. 

"  It  has  indeed  been  said  that  America  is  yet  too  young 
to  imbibe  an  ardor  for  letters;  that  she  can  hardly  expect 
even  works  of  mediocrity  for  years  yet  to  come;  that  seven 
centuries  from  the  foundation  of  Rome  were  scarcely  sufficient 
to  produce  Horace  and  Virgil,  Hortensius  and  Cicero;  that 
when  as  many  years  have  rolled  by,  from  the  landing  of  our 
fathers,  as  from  Romulus  to  Augustus,  we  may  then  expect 
great  poets,  orators  and  historians.  No  reasons  from  analogy 
can  apply  among  nations  so  entirely  dissimilar.  Rome  set 
out  in  the  career  of  national  existence  completely  barbarous. 
She  got  up  out  of  her  cradle  an  infant  savage,  with  all  the 
wolf  in  her  blood.  She  was  profoundly  ignorant  of  first 
elements.  She  began  at  her  alphabet.  America,  on  the  con 
trary,  commenced  her  existence  at  a  time  when  the  sources 

117 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

of  knowledge  were  unfolded,  and  the  human  mind  was  bound 
ing  forward  in  the  path  of  improvement.  Her  first  colonists 
were  scholars.  Raleigh,  Smith,  Penn,  Robinson  are  not  names 
found  in  the  first  page  of  Roman  history." 

His  forecast  for  American  literature  was  fulfilled. 
When  he  spoke  we  had,  you  may  say,  no  literature ;  but 
before  he  died  in  1852,  Longfellow,  Holmes,  Poe,  Irving, 
Prescott,  Motley,  Parkman,  Irving,  Hawthorne,  Lowell, 
and  the  rest  of  his  great  contemporaries  had  made  their 
mark  and  he  himself  was  counted  as  a  part  of  that 
literature. 

In  a  word,  literature  came  in  spite  of  the  causes 
working  against  it,  which  were,  he  said,  our  inor 
dinate  devotion  to  money-catching  and  our  love  of  petty 
local  politics.  It  was  not  politics  as  a  science,  the 
science  of  government,  which  was  injurious,  but  the  low 
contentious  forms  of  it. 

"  Let  ambitious  genius  beware,  how  it  plants  itself  on  the 
arid  soil  of  political  contention." 

He  was  evidently  looking  about  for  the  phases  of 
American  life  that  favored  or  did  not  favor  distinction. 
Ordinary  politics  were  against  it.  Journalism  was 
against  it.  His  opinion  of  the  journalism  of  that  time 
was  not  a  respectful  one.  In  France  a  career  in  journal 
ism  has  been  usually  regarded  as  favorable  to  literary 
talent  aspiring  for  the  best;  but  in  this  country  the 
opposite  opinion  has  usually  been  held.  .. 

Webster,  with  a  consciousness  of  his  powers,  had 
naturally  an  eye  to  distinction.  He  regarded  politics 
and  even  law  in  that  light  more  than  in  any  other. 
Writing  to  his  son  many  years  afterwards,  he  tells  him 
that  the  career  of  an  ordinary  lawyer  is  far  from  desir 
able  ;  and  if  no  pathway  to  high  distinction  is  seen  in 
the  law,  it  were  better  let  alone. 

It  is  curious  to  find  him  enlarging  on  these  thoughts 
in  his  Phi  Beta  Kappa  address  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
seven  when  we  remember  how  well  and  how  carefully 

118 


WEBSTER    AS    A     YOUNG    MAN 
(Artist  unknown) 


THE  WAR  OF  1812 

he  cultivated  his  literary  taste  and  formed  his  style  on 
the  great  masters  of  speech,  though  deep  in  both  politics 
and  law  all  the  time.      He  always  succeeded  in  keep 
ing  them  from  interfering.     His  contemporaries  were 
always  struck  by  his  remarkable  power  of  separating 
things,  of  turning  from  one  to  the  other,  and  dismissing 
completely  the  first.     He   could   argue  a  case   in   the\ 
Supreme  Court  and  fulfil  every  technical  and  customary \ 
requirement  of  the  art ;  and  the  next  hour  make  an  \ 
excellent  speech  in  the  Senate  requiring  such  a  totally  j 
different  manner  and  point  of  view,  that  in  the  Senate 
good    lawyers    were    often    inferior    to    half-educated 
back-woodsmen. 

Webster  became  one  of  the  greatest  examples  of  high\ 
literary  taste  and  genius  successfully  applied  to  law  and 
politics;  and  when  we  read  the  debates  of  the  Senate 
in  Jackson's  time,  and  in  the  mass  of  forgotten  coarse 
ness,  crudity  and  mediocrity  find  Webster's  classic 
speeches  standing  out  and  surviving  untainted  by  the 
pollution,  we  begin  to  see  how  the  ideal  of  the  youth 
was  carried  out  by  the  man. 

He  was  not  in  politics  yet  of  any  kind.  But  three 
years  afterwards  inJLulyr-i^i-2j  just  after  the  declara 
tion  of  war,  the  clock  struck  and  .his_JiQUxJiad^ come. 
He  delivered  the  Fourth  of  July  address  before  the 
Washington  Benevolent  Society  of  Portsmouth.  In 
regulation  partisan  style  he  assailed  the  war  and  the 
Democratic  administration.  We  had  built  up  a  mag 
nificent  commerce  since  the  Revolution,  and  if  our  navy 
had  been  kept  up  instead  of  being  sacrificed  to  the 
economical  ideas  of  farmer  Democrats,  England  would 
never  have  ventured  to  have  enforced  her  Orders  in 
Council  or  her  supposed  right  of  search. 

"If  the  plan  of  Washington  had  been  pursued,  and  our 
navy  had  been  suffered  to  grow,  as  it  naturally  would  have 
done,  with  the  growth  of  our  commerce  and  navigation,  what 
a  blow  might  at  this  moment  be  struck,  and  what  protection 
yielded,  surrounded  as  our  commerce  now  is  with  the  dangers 
of  sudden  war." 

119 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

But  instead  of  building  up  the  navy,  the  Democrats 
had  allowed  one  part  of  it  to  rot  and  had  sold  another 
part  at  auction  to  help  their  too  economical  treasury  until 
it  was  reduced  to  only  twelve  frigates  and  five  smaller 
vessels. 

The_war,  _W_ebster -went  on  to  say,  was  causeless; 
there  was  more  reason  for  war  with  France.  France 
had  begun  the  restrictions  on  neutrals.  There  could 
have  been  no  such  war  as  this  in  Washington's  time. 
He  understood  commerce ;  he  knew  that  the  Constitution 
had  been  primarily  adopted  to  encourage  commerce. 
Commerce  was  the  hope  of  America.  It  had  made  the 
country,  paid  its  Revolutionary  debt,  was  its  hope  for 
the  future,  and  the  bond  of  union  that  held  the  States 
together.  "  To  call  upon  us  now  to  forsake  the 
seas,  to  forget  the  virtues  of  the  magnet,  to  lose  even 
the  observance  and  guidance  of  the  stars,  is  to  summon 
us  to  repeal  at  once,  as  well  the  constitution  of  civilized 
man,  and  the  laws  of  nature,  as  the  Constitution  of  the 
country." 

Worst  of  all,  as  we  had  no  navy,  the  end  of  this 
democratic  war  would  be  to  force  us  into  an  alliance 
with  France  as  a  last  resort  to  save  ourselves  from 
British  conquest.  And  then  he  launched  forth  into  the 
horrors  of  such  a  connection,  an  abomination  to  which 
New  England  would  never  submit.  Rather  than  see 
the  unhallowed  hosts  of  France  spread  over  their  pater 
nal  fields  all  New  Englanders  would  commit  suicide. 
"  There  is  no  common  character,  nor  can  there  be  a 
common  interest  between  the  Protestants,  the  Dissentersv 
the  Puritans  of  New  England,  and  the  Papists,  the  In 
fidels  and  the  Atheists  of  France;  or  between  our  free 
republican  institutions  and  the  most  merciless  tyranny 
that  ever  heaven  suffered  to  afflict  mankind." 

It  is  easy  to  understand  that  in  a  community  like 
Portsmouth,  strongly  ship-owning  and  Federalist,  the 
delivery  of  such  an  oration  was  a jvery  distinct  proof 
that  young  Webster  could  be  put  to  other  Uses  -than 

I2O 


THE  WAR  OF  1812 

the  practice  of  the  law.  At  least  so  the  Federalists  of 
Portsmouth  thought.  The  Democrats  would  have  kept 
Webster  in  private  life  and  some  criticisms  of  him  from 
a  Democratic  source  in  Plumer's  reminiscences  may  be 
useful. 

"The  first  notice  I  find  of  Mr.  Webster  in  my  journal  is 
under  date  of  August,  1810:  Webster  is  a  young  man  under 
thirty.  As  a  speaker  merely  he  is  perhaps  the  best  at  the  bar. 
His  language  is  correct,  his  gestures  good;  and  his  delivery 
slow,  articulate  and  distinct.  He  excels  in  the  statement  of 
facts;  but  he  is  not  thought  to  be  a^  deep-read  lawyer.  His 
manners  are  not  pleasing— being  haughty,  cold  and  overbear 
ing.  .  .  .  September  8,  1812,  Charles  Cutts,  who  was  here 
a  few  days  since,  informed  me  that  at  the  meetings  of  the 
Washington  Benevolent  Society  of  Portsmouth,  Daniel  Web 
ster  regularly  delivers  political  lectures  to  the  Society,  and 
that  he  is  getting  a  great  influence  there.  .  .  .  Webster 
has  talent  equal  to  any  office ;  but  he  is  as  malignant  as  Robes 
pierre  and  not  less  tyrannical !  Party  feeling  was  at  this  time 
very  strong  and  virulent;  and  in  these  party  strifes,  Mr.  Web 
ster's  blows  fell  too  fast  and  heavy  not  to  inspire  equal  dread 
and  resentment  in  his  opponents.  It  must  be  admitted,  too, 
that  his  manner  at  this  time  was  like  Wolsey's,  '  lofty  and  sour 
to  them  that  loved  him  not.'"  (Works,  National  Edition,  vol. 
xvi,  pp.  546,  547-) 

One  reason  they  loved  him  not  was  because  the 
Judges  had  been  all  Democrats  and  when  Webster's 
Federalists  got  into  power  they  reorganized  the  courts, 
turned  out  all  the  Democratic  Judges  and  put  Federalist 
Judges  in  their  places.  Webster  had  shown  some  of  his 
early  command  of  language  by  denouncing  the  igno 
rance  and  stupidity  of  the  Democratic  Judges. 

In  after  years  association  with  the  great  world  in 
Washington  changed  Webster's  lofty  Federalist  manner 
and  he  became  one  of  the  most  affable  of  public  men. 
Soon  after  his  speech  before  the  Washington  Benevo 
lent  Society,  he  was  appointed  at  the  head  of  a  commit 
tee  that  took  charge  of  a  mass  meeting  of  the  Federalists 
of  Rockingham  County,  in  which  Portsmouth  was  situ 
ated.  The  meeting  was  called  to  protest  against  the 
war;  and  the  document  sent  by  it  to  President  Madison 

121 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

was  known  as  the  Rockingham  Memorial  and  was 
written  by  Webster. 

It  contained  not  a  little  of  that  power  of  argument 
which  characterized  his  maturer  years.  There  are  pass 
ages  in  it  that  almost  convince  us  that  the  old  Federal 
ists  may  have  been  right.  It  beat  over  the  old  ground 
that  the  war  was  unjust;  that  its  supposed  cause,  the 
impressment  of  American  sailors,  was  greatly  exag 
gerated  ;  there  were  numerous  ship-owners  and  captains 
in  both  New  Hampshire  and  Massachusetts  who  in 
twenty  years'  experience  had  never  lost  a  single  native 
American  sailor  by  impressment ;  the  States  in  favor  of 
the  war  were  the  States  that  had  no  seamen,  while  those 
that  had  three-fourths  of  all  the  mariners  were  voting 
by  great  majorities  against  the  war ;  the  neighbors,  the 
friends,  the  relatives  of  the  supposed  impressed  sailors, 
the  sailors  themselves,  that  were  at  home,  were  all 
voting  against  the  war.  England  claimed  no  right 
to  impress  our  seamen,  but  only  her  own  subjects,  and 
was  willing  to  adjust  all  difficulties  amicably;  the  coun 
try  was  unprepared  for  war ;  there  was  no  navy  to  pro 
tect  it;  and  when  the  commercial  States  originally 
accepted  the  Constitution  it  was  on  the  understanding 
that  their  interests  should  be  protected  by  an  adequate 
navy;  this  had  not  been  fulfilled  and  the  failure  might 
break  up  the  Union.  As  for  an  alliance  with  France 
New  England  would  have  no  part  in  it,  and  would 
treat  French  troops  as  enemies. 

The  passage  which  enforced  the  hints  about  danger 
to  the  Union  was  often  afterwards  quoted  by  the  defen 
ders  of  secession. 

"We  are,  sir,  from  principle  and  habit,  attached  to  the 
union  of  the  States.  But  our  attachment  is  to  the  substance, 
and  not  to  the  form.  It  is  to  the  good  which  this  union  is 
capable  of  producing,  and  not  to  the  evil  which  is  suffered 
unnaturally  to  grow  out  of  it.  ... 

"  We  shrink  from  the  separation  of  the  States,  as  an  event 
fraught  with  incalculable  evils,  and  it  is  among  our  strongest 
objections  to  the  present  course  of  measures,  that  they  have,  in 

122 


THE  WAR  OF  1812 

our  opinion,  a  very  dangerous  and  alarming  bearing  on  such 
an  event.  If  a  separation  of  the  States  ever  should  take  place, 
it  will  be  on  some  occasion  when  one  portion  of  the  country 
undertakes  to  control,  to  regulate,  and  to  sacrifice  the  interest 
of  another;  when  a  small  and  heated  majority  in  the  govern 
ment,  taking  counsel  of  their  passions,  and  not  of  their  reason, 
contemptuously  disregarding  the  interests  and  perhaps  stopping 
the  mouths  of  a  large  and  respectable  minority,  shall,  by  hasty, 
rash,  and  ruinous  measures,  threaten  to  destroy  essential  rights 
and  lay  waste  the  most  important  interests. 

"  It  shall  be  our  most  fervent  supplication  to  heaven  to 
avert  both  the  event  and  the  occasion ;  and  the  government  may 
be  assured  that  the  tie  that  binds  us  to  the  union  will  never 
be  broken  by  us." 

These  hints  were  certainly  not  altogether  consistent 
with  Webster's  arguments  in  later  life.  But  there  had 
been  all  sorts  of  talk  about  secession  ever  since  the  adop 
tion  of  the  Constitution.  It  was  a  common  partisan 
argument  of  the  time  that  unless  so  and  so  were  done 
"the  American  Union  must  be  dissolved."  In  1811  in 
a  debate  in  the  Senate  on  a  bill  to  admit  the  territory  of 
Orleans  as  a  State,  Josiah  Quincy  declared  that  if  the 
bill  passed  it  would  be  the  right  as  well  as  the  duty  of 
some  States  to  "  prepare  definitely  for  separation,  ami 
cably  if  they  can,  violently  if  they  must." 

Those  few  words  "  amicably  if  they  can,  violently  if 
they  must,"  contain  the  theory,  the  two  methods  of 
separation,  which  prevailed  at  that  time.  The  first, 
or  amicable,  method  was  for  the  discontented  States 
or  section  to  come  to  an  agreement  with  the  other 
States  on  some  plan  of  break-up  or  separation  arrang 
ing  the  conditions  and  details.  That  is  to  say,  all 
the  States  should  come  together  again  and  make,  in 
effect,  a  new  Constitution,  or  if  you  please,  amend  the 
Constitution  so  as  to  let  the  discontented  States  leave 
the  Union.  The  violent  plan  was  simply  that  the  dis 
contented  section  should  exercise  the  right  of  revolu 
tion,  declare  itself  independent,  refuse  obedience  to  the 
general  government,  and,  if  necessary,  maintain  that 
position  with  the  sword.  The  New  Englanders  do  not 

123 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

seem  to  have  maintained  at  that  time  that  the  Consti 
tution  itself,  by  its  own  terms,  gave  a  State  either  the 
legal  right  to  secede  or  the  legal  right  to  annul  objection 
able  acts  of  Congress.  They  seem  to  have  regarded 
the  Constitution  as  binding  the  States  together  into  a 
union  that  could  be  broken  only  by  common  consent 
or  by  violence  and  revolution.  The  idea  that  the  Con 
stitution  itself  allowed  nullification  and  secession  as 
legal  rights  under  the  Constitution  was  not  put  forth 
until  some  ten  or  fifteen  years  afterwards  and  then  not 
by  the  New  Englanders  but  by  the  South  Carolinians. 
But  returning  to  the  instances  of  discussion  of  this 
subject  of  dissolution  in  that  period,  we  find  that  in 
1803,  when  Spain  suspended  our  right  of  deposit  of 
merchandise  at  New  Orleans,  contrary,  as  was  believed, 
to  the  treaty,  there  was  a  great  cry  for  war  among  the 
Federalists.  The  Boston  Sentinel  for  January  i7th 
contained  the  statement  that  "  the  free  navigation  of  the 
river  (the  Mississippi)  must  be  preserved  to  that  portion 
of  the  American  people  or  the  American  empire  must 
be  dismembered."  In  the  "  Life  and  Letters  of  George 
Cabot,"  Senator  Lodge  has  given  with  considerable 
fulness  the  discussions  which  took  place  about  this  time 
among  leading  Federalists  in  Congress — Pickering, 
Griswold,  Tracy,  Plumer,  Hellhouse  and  others — on 
the  advisability  of  forming  a  Northern  Confederacy 
to  include  New  England,  New  York,  and  perhaps  Penn 
sylvania,  New  Jersey,  and  Canada.  Their  reason  for 
this  was  disgust  with  the  Jeffersonian  Democracy  then 
in  power.  Pickering,  as  in  the  following  letter,  was 
quite  outspoken  on  the  subject. 

"And  must  we  submit  to  these  evils  .  .  .  The  most 
intelligent  of  the  Federalists  here  have  been  reflecting  on  this 
subject  with  the  deepest  concern.  Massachusetts,  as  the  most 
powerful,  they  say,  should  take  the  lead.  At  the  word  from 
her,  Connecticut  would  instantly  join.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
of  New  Hampshire.  Rhode  Island  would  follow  of  necessity. 
There  would  probably  be  no  great  difficulty  in  bringing  in 
Vermont.  But  New  York  should  also  concur;  and,  as  she 

124 


THE  WAR  OF  1812 

might  be  made  the  centre  of  the  northern  union,  it  can  hardly 
be  supposed  that  she  would  refuse  her  assent.  New  Jersey 
would  assuredly  become  an  associate;  and  it  is  to  be  wished 
that  Pennsylvania,  at  least  east  of  the  Susquehanna,  might 
be  induced  to  come  into  the  confederacy.  At  no  distant 
period  the  British  Provinces  on  the  north  and  northeast  would 
probably  become  a  part  of  the  northern  union.  I  think  Great 
Britain  would  not  object;  for  she  would  continue  to  derive 
from  them,  when  become  States,  all  the  commercial  advan 
tages  they  would  yield  if  continued  her  provinces,  without  the 
expense  of  governing  and  defending  them."  (Life  and  Letters 
of  George  Cabot,  p.  445.) 

"  Although  the  end  of  all  our  Revolutionary  labors  and 
expectations  is  disappointment,  and  our  fond  hopes  of  Repub 
lican  happiness  are  vanity,  and  the  real  patriots  of  '76  are 
overwhelmed  by  the  modern  pretenders  to  that  character,  I 
will  not  yet  despair.  I  will  rather  anticipate  a  new  confeder 
acy,  exempt  from  the  corrupt  and  corrupting  influence  and 
oppression  of  the  aristocratic  Democrats  of  the  South.  There 
will  be  (and  our  children  at  farthest  will  see  it)  a  separation. 
The  white  and  black  population  will  mark  the  boundary.  The 
British  provinces,  even  with  the  assent  of  Britain,  will  become 
members  of  the  northern  confederacy.  A  continued  tyranny 
of  the  present  ruling  sect  will  precipitate  that  event."  (Life 
and  Letters  of  George  Cabot,  p.  441.) 

These  Federalists  tried  to  bring  to  their  plan  other 
Federalists,  but  without  success ;  and  Alexander  Hamil 
ton's  refusal  is  noteworthy. 

"  I  will  here  express  but  one  sentiment :  xvhich  is  that 
dismemberment  of  our  empire  will  be  a  clear  sacrifice  of  great 
positive  advantages,  without  any  counterbalancing  good;  ad 
ministering  no  relief  to  our  real  disease,  which  is  democracy; 
the  poison  of  which  by  a  subdivision  will  only  be  the  more 
virulent."  (Works,  vi,  p.  568.) 

It  was  very  natural  that  the  advantages  and  disad 
vantages  of  the  union  should  have  been  freely  discussed 
at  that  period  when  the  union  under  the  Constitution 
was  not  a  generation  old  and  still,  in  the  opinion  of 
many,  an  experiment. 

Going  back  to  1796  we  find  the  Hartford  C  our  ant 
assailing  the  South,  saying  that  if  the  slaves  were  fit 
for  food  the  Southerners  would  eat  them,  and  that  the 

125 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

union  would  be  an  impossibility  for  any  long  period  in 
the  future.4 

"  We  have  reached  a  critical  period  in  our  political  exist 
ence.  The  question  must  soon  be  decided,  whether  we  will 
continue  a  nation  at  the  expense  even  of  our  union,  or  sink 
with  the  present  mass  of  difficulty  into  confusion  and  slavery." 

"Many  advantages  were  supposed  to  be  secured  ,and 
many  evils  avoided  by  a  union  of  the  States.  I  shall  not  deny 
that  the  supposition  was  well  founded.  But  at  that  time  those 
advantages  and  those  evils  were  magnified  to  a  far  greater 
size  than  either  would  be  if  the  question  was  at  this  moment 
to  be  settled. 

"  The  northern  states  can  subsist  as  a  nation,  a  republic, 
without  any  connection  with  the  southern.'' 

Going  further  back,  we  find  that  in  the  convention 
that  framed  the  Constitution,  there  was  a  minority 
party  that  wanted  to  continue  the  old  league  under  the 
Articles  of  Confederation  with  a  few  amendments. 
They  protested  against  a  national  government,  but  they 
were  voted  down  by  the  majority.  When  the  Consti 
tution  was  offered  to  the  people  for  adoption,  we  find 
a  minority  here  and  there  objecting  because  it  made 
too  strong  a  government,  a  government  that  was  not  a 
league  of  States  like  the  old  confederation.  Some 
prominent  men  like  Luther  Martin,  of  Maryland,  voted 
against  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  because  it 
created  a  national  government  and  took  away  so  much 
of  the  independent  sovereignty  of  the  States.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  advocates  for  adoption,  like  Johnson 
and  Ellsworth  in  Connecticut,  and  the  writers  in  the 
Federalist,  recommended  the  Constitution  because  it 
was  not  a  league  of  States,  because  it  acted  upon  indi 
viduals  and  not  upon  States,  and  because  it  created  a 
nation. 

With  these  two  parties  pointing  out  with  the  clear 
est  distinctness  that  the  Constitution,  if  adopted,  would 
create  an  indissoluble  union,  the  majority  of  the  States, 

4M.  Carey,  "Olive  Branch,"  7th  edition,  pp.  246,  269,  271, 
272;  Abridgment  of  the  Debates  of  Congress,  vol.  iv,  p.  327. 

126 


THE  WAR  OF  1812 

with  their  eyes  open  to  what  the  Constitution  really  was, 
adopted  it  as  it  came  from  the  convention  that  framed 
it;  and  that  convention  in  submitting  it  to  the  people 
of  the  States  had  reminded  them  that  it  was  intended 
to  consolidate  the  union.  Legally  and  constitutionally 
there  was,  therefore,  never  any  room  to  doubt  that  no 
State  under  the  Constitution  had  a  right  to  nullify  the 
laws  of  the  Congress,  or,  what  was  the  same  thing, 
peacefully  secede  from  the  union.  If  a  State  or  a  num 
ber  of  States  chose  to  secede  by  force,  or  by  the  right 
of  revolution  as  it  is  called,  an  inalienable  right  re 
tained  by  all  communities,  that  was  of  course  an  entirely 
different  question  outside  of  the  pale  of  legal  argument. 

/As  there  had  been  a  minority  opposed  to  the  adop 
tion  of  the  Constitution  because  it  created  what  was 
then  called  a  consolidated  union,  there  was  very  natur 
ally  for  several  generations  after  a  minority  here  and 
there  that,  when  dissatisfied,  would  talk  about  secession. 
The  Federalists  of  New  England  threatened  it  in 
1796,  in  1803,  and  in  18 12.5  The  South  Carolinians 
threatened  it  in  1830,  in  1833,  and  led  the  other  South 
ern  States  into  a  war  for  it  in  1861.  -In  all  cases  it  was 
a  minority.  The  majority  of  the  people  of  the  country, 
like  the  majority  that  adopted  the  Constitution,  have 
always  regarded  that  instrument  as  doing  exactly  what 
its  words  import ;  creating  an  indissoluble  union  that 
could  not  be  broken  by  any  peaceful  methods. 

-"Webster  finally  became  the  most  illustrious  advocate 
of  the  indissoluble  union.     But  at  present  he  is  with| 
one  of  those  minorities  that  were  looking  the  other  way./ 
As  the  war  went  on  and  New  England  commerce  suf- 

5  In  1821  the  Richmond  Enquirer  recommended  a  punish 
ment  for  persons  who  should  attempt  to  enforce  judgments  of 
the  Supreme  Court  or  Acts  of  Congress  within  the  State 
of  Virginia,  and  in  the  same  year  the  Legislature  of  Ohio 
taxed  the  Bank  of  the  United  States.  Jervey,  Life  of  Hayne, 
pp.  115,  116.  See  also  the  same  author,  pp.  35-40,  for  another 
instance. 

127 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

fered  greater  and  greater  devastation,  the  people  talked 
disunion  more  than  ever. 

It  had  been  really  a  very  fine  thing,  that  New  Eng 
land  commercial  ascendency;  that  ship-owning  aristoc 
racy,  with  its  generously  built  and  noble  old  houses; 
its  romantic  influences  of  trade  with  the  whole  world; 
its  cargoes  and  wild  adventures  from  India  and  China ; 
the  vigor  and  freshness  of  the  "  gay  green  sea,"  and 
the  sailor's  inspiring  life.  The  New  Englanders  knew 
how  to  turn  all  this  picturesqueness  to  account  in  their 
lives  much  better  than  the  New  Yorkers  or  the  Caro 
linians.  They  described  it  and  gave  it  a  fascinating 
literary  form.  They  filled  their  homes  with  its  spoils 
and  treasures.  Old  families  grew  more  wealthy  and 
refined.  New  families  were  coming  on  in  the  same 
path. 

It  was  the  sort  of  conservatism  of  education,  wealth, 
and  intellect  that  was  always  particularly  attractive  to 
Webster;  and  when  its  foundation,  that  is,  its  wealth, 
was  being  knocked  from  under  it  by  the  Democrats'  war 
with  England,  the  outcry  resounded  on  all  sides.  There 
were  heavy  losses  and  great  suffering ;  there  is  no  use  in 
denying  it;  and  New  England  literary  ability  is  able 
to  make  an  outcry  very  vivid.  There  were  many  pros 
perous  ship-owning  merchants  at  that  time  in  New 
York,  Philadelphia,  and  Charleston ;  but  Boston  exalted 
the  picturesque  ideal  of  the  New  England  merchant  and 
his  misfortunes  beyond  all  others. 

Not  to  dwell  too  long  on  this  unpleasant  period,  New 
England  began  to  do  very  naughty  things.  Several  of 
her  more  reckless  ministers  of  the  Gospel  preached 
secession  from  the  pulpit.  The  Sentinel,  the  Repertory, 
and  the  Boston  Gazette  advocated  it,  and  declared  the 
union  already  practically  dissolved.  Regarding  herself 
as  entirely  separated  from  the  Democratic  administra 
tion  and  its  war,  New  England  established  a  regular 
system  of  trade  with  the  public  enemy.  The  British 
army  and  navy  were  supplied  with  cattle  and  provisions 
driven  over  the  line  into  Canada.  Everything  possible 

128 


y/Y 

THE  HARTFORD  CONVENTION 

was  done  to  defeat  the  war  loan  of  the  government. 
Attempts  were  made  to  draw  the  specie  from  the  banks 
south  of  New  England.  Those  in  Boston  who  were 
willing  to  subscribe  to  the  war  loan  were  so  overawed 
by  public  opinion  that  they  had  to  make  their  subscrip 
tions  in  secret.  The  British  ministry,  thinking  a  great 
opportunity  might  have  arrived,  sent  a  Canadian  lawyer, 
John  Henry,  to  New  England  to  report  how  near  the 
country  was  ripe  for  revolt  and  union  with  Canada. 
The  English  fleet  blockaded  the  whole  of  our  coast 
except  New  England.  The  Democratic  Congress 
passed  the  Embargo  Act  of  1813  because  they  believed 
that  New  England,  unblockaded,  was  trading  with 
Great  Britain  and  supplying  with  provisions  the  fleets 
and  armies  that  were  invading  America. 

This  last  embargo  act  roused  New  England  indig- 
nation   more   than    ever.     They   believed   the    country 
ruined ;  the  war  after  two  years  seemed  hopeless  of  suc 
cess  ;  our  little  navy,  in  spite  of  its  first  victories,  had  dis 
appeared  from  the  ocean;  the  army  was  defeated  and 
useless ;  England  preparing  for  heavy  invasion ;  New 
England  unprotected  ;  the  general  government  bankrupt; 
and  with  the  government  in  the  hands  of  such  people  as 
the  Democrats  it  was  a  curse  rather  than  a  blessing. 
Accordingly  the  Massachusetts  legislature,  by  an  over-  x| 
whelmingly  large  vote,  called  a  convention  of  all  New    i 
England.     A  picked  body  of  the  most  respectable  and 
conservative   Federalists,   twelve   from   Massachusetts, 
seven  from  Connecticut,  four  from  Rhode  Island,  two  a 
from  New  Hampshire,  and  one  from  Vermont,  met  inj} 
what  has  ever  since  been  known  as  the  Hartford  Con4/ 
vention  of   1814,  which  sat  with  doors  closed  to  tho 
public  and  discussed  the  troubles  of  the  time.6 

A  great  deal  of  argument  has  been  written  for  and 

'See  generally  Life  and  Letters  of  George  Cabot  and  M. 
Carey's  Olive  Branch,  7th  edition,  pp.  298,  303-308,  310,  311, 
316,  322-327,  351,  354,  441,  449-457;  McMaster,  History  of  the' 
People  of  the  United  States,  vol.  iv,  pp.  222,  229,  251 ;  Webster, 
Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xvi,  p.  193. 

9  129 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

against  this  convention.     But  it  is  better  to  quote  their 

own  language  and  opinions  on  the  question  of  secession, 

and  in  the  report  they  published  there  are  two  passages 

L^  on  this  question.     The  Constitution,  they  said,  had  been 

a  most  successful  instrument  of  government  under  Fed- 

/     eralist  administration ;  but  with  the  Democrats  in  power 

i      an  unjust  war  had  been  begun  which  was  ruining  New 

I      England.     But  they  would  be  patient  and  not  on  this 

account  dissolve  the  union. 

"  If  the  union  be  destined  to  dissolution  by  reason  of  the 
multiplied  abuses  of  bad  administrations,  it  should,  if  possible, 
be  the  work  of  peaceable  times  and  deliberate  consent.  Some 
new  form  of  confederacy  should  be  submitted  among  those 
States  which  shall  in  time  maintain  a  federal  relation  to  each 
other.  Events  may  prove  that  the  causes  of  our  calamities 
are  deep  and  permanent.  They  may  be  found  to  proceed,  not 
merely  from  the  blindness  of  prejudice,  pride  of  opinion,  vio 
lence  of  party  spirit  or  the  confusion  of  the  times;  but  they 
may  be  traced  to  implacable  combinations  of  individuals,  or 
of  States,  to  monopolize  power  and  office,  and  to  trample 
without  remorse  upon  the  rights  and  interests  of  commercial 
sections  of  the  union.  Whenever  it  shall  appear  that  these 
causes  are  radical  and  permanent,  a  separation,  by  equitable 
arrangement,  will  be  preferable  to  an  alliance  by  constraint, 
among  nominal  friends,  but  real  enemies,  inflamed  by  mutual 
hatred  and  jealousy,  and  inviting,  by  intestine  divisions,  con 
tempt  and  aggression  from  abroad.  But  a  severance  of  the 
union  by  one  or  more  States,  against  the  will  of  the  rest,  and 
especially  in  a  time  of  war,  can  be  justified  only  by  absolute 
necessity."  (Dwight,  History  of  the  Hartford  Convention, 
p.  355-) 

They  then  go  on  to  show  that  the  method  of  the 
Democratic  administration  in  dividing  up  the  country 
into  districts  for  calling  out  the  militia,  and  leaving  the 
calling  of  them  within  the  discretion  of  the  President, 
was  a  violation  of  the  Constitution,  by  which  the  militia 
could  be  converted  by  the  President  into  a  standing 
army  to  destroy  the  liberties  of  the  States.  They  were 
wrong  in  their  law,  however,  for  the  Supreme  Court 
afterwards  held  that  the  President  had  this  discretionary 
power  of  calling  out  the  militia.  They  go  on  to  say : 

130 


THE  HARTFORD  CONVENTION 

"  That  acts  of  Congress  in  violation  of  the  Constitution 
are  absolutely  void,  is  an  undeniable  position.  It  does  not, 
however,  consist  with  respect  and  forbearance  due  from  a 
confederate  State  towards  the  general  government  to  fly  to 
open  resistance  upon  every  infraction  of  the  Constitution.  The 
mode  and  the  energy  of  the  opposition  should  always  conform 
to  the  nature  of  the  violation,  the  intention  of  its  authors,  the 
extent  of  the  injury  inflicted,  the  determination  manifested  to 
persist  in  it,  and  the  danger  of  delay.  But  in  cases  of  delib 
erate,  dangerous  and  palpable  infractions  of  the  Constitution, 
affecting  the  sovereignty  of  a  State  and  liberties  of  the  people, 
it  is  not  only  the  right,  but  the  duty  of  such  a  State  to  inter 
pose  its  authority  for  their  protection,  in  the  manner  best 
calculated  to  secure  that  end.  When  emergencies  occur  which 
are  either  beyond  the  reach  of  the  judicial  tribunals,  or  too 
pressing  to  admit  of  the  delay  incident  to  their  forms,  States 
which  have  no  common  umpire,  must  be  their  own  judges, 
and  execute  their  own  decisions."  (D wight,  History  of  the 
Hartford  Convention,  p.  361.) 

But  we  must  wait,  they  say,  and  see  what  shall 
be  the  "  ultimate  disposal  "  of  all  the  obnoxious  meas 
ures  of  the  administration  before  deciding  how  to  pro 
tect  our  rights  and  liberties.  In  fact,  they  say  that  any 
ultimate  measure  about  disunion  must  be  left  to  an 
other  convention,  to  be  afterwards  called,  if  necessary. 
They  recommend  a  bargain  or  agreement  to  be  made 
with  the  general  government  by  which  New  England 
could  assume  her  own  defense  with  her  own  troops ;  that 
the  Constitution  be  amended  so  that  the  representatives 
in  Congress  from  the  South  shall  be  in  proportion  to 
the  number  of  free  inhabitants  and  not  on  the  basis 
of  both  free  inhabitants  and  slaves;  that  no  new  State 
be  admitted  to  the  union  without  the  concurrence  of 
two-thirds  of  both  Houses  of  Congress ;  that  Congress 
shall  not  have  power  to  lay  any  embargo,  or  to  declare 
war  or  interdict  commerce,  except  by  a  two-thirds  vote ; 
that  only  native-born  citizens  shall  hold  office;  that  the 
President  shall  not  be  eligible  to  election  a  second  time, 
nor  a  President  be  elected  from  the  same  State  two 
terms  in  succession. 

This  is  in  substance  all  that  the  convention  did  or 
131 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

proposed  to  do.  The  suspicion  that  in  addition  to 
these  public  announcements  they  plotted  secretly  to 
separate  New  England  from  the  union  has  never  been 
proved,  remains  a  mere  suspicion,  and  must  here  be 
dismissed  with  that,  because  it  is  more  important  in 
view  of  Webster's  later  career  to  consider  the  theory 
of  the  convention's  disunion  doctrines  which  may  be 
briefly  summarized. 

i.  What  they  say  about  States  being  entitled  to  be  their 
own  judges,  when  they  have  no  common  umpire  and  there  is 
a  deliberate,  dangerous,  and  palpable  violation  of  the  Con 
stitution,  is  taken  from  the  Virginia  and  Kentucky  resolutions 
adopted  by  the  Democrats  when  the  Federalists  were  in  power 
and  were  pressing  the  Democrats  hard  with  the  alien  and 
sedition  laws.  In  other  words,  in  those  days  any  party  that 
was  pinched  was  apt  to  say,  stop  pinching  me  or  I  won't  play 
any  more.  I  will  quit  the  game,  go  out  of  the  union.  This 
as  Webster  often  afterwards  pointed  out,  is  not  any  theory  of 
constitutional  nullification  or  secession,  does  not  rest  for  sup 
port  on  the  words  of  the  Constitution,  but  is  a  right  outside 
of  the  Constitution  and  outside  of  all  constitutions,  is,  in  short, 
merely  the  right  of  revolution  never  denied  by  anyone,  embodied 
in  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  not  questioned  in  our 
time.  Any  State  or  community  of  people  have  the  right,  of 
course,  to  break  away  from  intolerable  tyranny  or  persecution 
and  take  their  chances  of  a  war  over  it. 

2.  The  other  method  of  separation  the  convention  describes 
as    "  separation   by   equitable    arrangement ; "    that    is,    by   the 
agreement  and  consent  of  the  other    States   coming  together 
again  and   making  a   new   constitution,   or  amending  the  old 
one  so  as  to  let  the  discontented  ones  depart  in  peace.    The 
convention  also  seems  to  have  been  of  the  opinion  that  the 
Supreme  Court  is  the  proper  tribunal  for  settling  these  serious 
questions,  if  they  can  be  settled  without  resorting  to  the  other 
methods.    That   was   afterwards   part   of   Webster's   argument 
in  the  nullification  debates  of  1830  and  1833;  and  he  pointed 
out  that  the   Massachusetts   Federalists   had  lived   up  to  this 
doctrine  by  taking  the  Embargo  Act  before  the  Supreme  Court 
to  test  its   constitutionality,  and  when  the  court  in   1808  de 
cided  it  constitutional,  accepting  that  decision. 

3.  This  doctrine  is  quite  different  from  the  southern  doc 
trines  of  nullification  and  secession.     The   southerners  denied 
the  authority  of  the  Supreme  Court  to  settle  these  questions 
of  sovereignty.    They  did  not  rely  on  the  right  of  revolution, 

132 


THE  HARTFORD  CONVENTION 

or  on  "  separation  by  equitable  arrangement,"  but  declared 
that  a  State  had  the  legal  right  to  nullify  objectionable  acts 
of  Congress  and  yet  remain  in  the  union;  and  later,  that  a 
State  had  the  legal  right  peacefully  to  secede  from  the  union 
of  its  own  accord  and  without  the  consent  of  the  other  States. 

In  1850  there  was  another  outbreak  of  disunion 
sentiment  in  New  England  among  the  abolitionists 
because  the  Constitution  guaranteed  that  slavery  in 
the  southern  States  should  not  be  interfered  with.  The 
Constitution,  the  abolitionists  declared,  was  "  a  covenant 
with  death  and  a  league  with  hell ; "  it  was,  they  said, 
not  worth  preserving;  and  in  order  to  get  rid  of  that 
infamous  guaranty  they  announced  themselves  ready  to 
dissolve  the  union,  or  let  the  South  dissolve  the  union, 
or  do  anything  to  be  rid  of  the  Constitution  and  its 
guaranty  of  slavery.  That  was  their  method  of  separa 
tion. 

All  this  somewhat  detailed  consideration  of  the  dis 
union  opinions  of  the  time  and  the  reasoning  of  the 
convention  will  help  us  to  a  better  understanding  of 
Webster's  position  in  the  famous  nullification  contro 
versy  some  fifteen  years  afterwards. 

-^He  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  Hartford  Convention, 
although  in  after  years  great  efforts  were  made  to  try 
to  connect  his  name  with  it  or  show  that  he  had  ap 
proved  of  it.  He  always  said  that  he  had  disapproved  I 
of  it.  HP  wag  in  Congress  at  the,  time,  and  remained 
in  Washington  until  after  the  convention  had  adjourned.  < 

If  he  should  return  to  us  and  we  could  have  him 
down  at  Marshfield  in  his  old  haunts,  at  a  good  dinner, 
he  would,  no  doubt,  assure  us  in  his  most  amiable  and 
convincing  wTay  that  the  Hartford  Convention  and  all 
the  other  dissolution  talk  in  New  England  was  mere 
froth  and  excitement,  a  passing  excitement  caused  by 
the  strain  and  heavy  losses  of  the  war  and  the  embar 
goes,  and  that  the  New  England  people  and  their  leaders 
had  never  had  the  slightest  intention  of  real  secession 
or  anything  like  it ;  that  they  had  taken  the  Embargo  Act 

133 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

before  the  Supreme  Court  to  test  its  constitutionality, 
and  when  that  tribunal  had  declared  it  constitutional 
they  had  had  nothing  more  to  say.  In  fact,  he  said  the 
equivalent  of  this  in  his  reply  to  Hayne;  and  the  re 
ports  of  John  Henry,  the  British  emissary,  afterwards 
published  in  Matthew  Carey's  "  Olive  Branch,"  bear 
him  out.  That  worthy  person  reported  to  the  British 
ministry  an  immense  amount  of  excitement,  talk  and 
threatening.  But  although  he  went  up  and  down  and 
all  through  New  England  seeking  for  something  more 
definite,  he  finally  concluded  that  there  was  no  real 
intention  to  break  away  and  no  ground  for  expecting 
a  real^revolt. 

^^Nevertheless,  this  excitement  of  sectionalism  and 
provincialism  put  Webster  into  national  politics.  The 
Rockingham  meeting  which  adopted  the  memorial  he 
had  prepared  also  nominated  him  for  Congress,  and  he 
took  his  seat  in  May,  1813.  No  doubt  it  may  have  been 
part  of  his  mission  and  training  that  he  should  be 
involved  with  this  side  that  he  might  be  the  more  com 
petent  in  later  years  to  argue  the  other.  The  first  study 
of  the  great  defender  of  the  union  was  to  learn  how 
to  destroy  it  for  the  sake  of  the  sanctified  provincial 
merchant.  But  he  grew,  he  developed,  he  graduated 
from  that  narrow  ideal  into  the  broader  field  of  the 
union  and  the  Constitution  one  and  inseparable.  \  . 

"  When  a  seat  in  Congress  was  first  suggested  to  him 
he  was  inclined  to  decline  because  '  he  was  poor  and  must 
attend  to  his  business  as  a  lawyer.' 

"  The  next  day  Judge  Smith  received  a  letter  from  him 
dated  at  N.  Stratham,  on  his  way  down  to  Portsmouth,  saying 
that  on  the  whole  he  should  not  decline  a  seat  if  elected.  As 
to  the  law,  he  added,  '  I  must  attend  to  that  too, — but  honor 
is,  after  all,  worth  more  than  money.'  '  The  impudent  dog 
that  he  is,'  said  Smith  afterwards,  in  relating  the  story,  '  he 
does  not  know  the  value  of  money,  and  never  will.  No  matter, 
he  was  born  for  something  better  than  hoarding  money  bags." 
(Webster,  Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xvii,  p.  547.) 

In  Congress,  Webster's  most  conspicuous  effort  was 
directed  to  securing  the  passage  of  a  set  of  resolutions 

134 


THE  HARTFORD  CONVENTION 

calling  on  Madison's  administration  to  explain  when 
and  how  the  repeal  of  the  French  decrees  had  been 
communicated  to  our  government.  The  answer  re 
vealed,  or  more  correctly,  made  certain,  that  there  really 
had  been  a  repealing  decree;  but  it  had  not  been  re 
ceived  by  our  government  until  more  than  a  year  after 
its  date  and  nearly  a  month  after  the  declaration  of  war. 
The  administration  had  acted  in  its  negotiations  with 
England  and  in  the  declaration  of  war  merely  on  the 
original  vague  French  note,  which  only  suggested  that 
there  might  possibly,  at  some  time,  be  such  a  repealing 
decree. 

Napoleon  astutely  arranged  it  so  that  the  door  should 
be  open  and  the  door  should  be  shut.  He  had  finally 
issued  a  repealing  decree ;  no  one  could  say  that  he  had 
not  kept  his  word ;  but  he  had  so  managed  that  its  exist 
ence  should  not  be  known  until  America  and  England 
were  committed  to  war;  and  at  the  same  time  he  con 
tinued  to  seize  American  ships  as  if  there  had  been  no 
repealing  of  the  decrees.  So  the  debate  raged  anew  in 
Congress,  whether  we  should  have  gone  to  war  with 
France  instead  of  with  England  ;  or,  as  some  said,  "  gone 
to  war  with  them  both." 

'•'Webster  steadily  voted  and  spoke  against  pretty 
much  all  the ;  administration  measurgsj  He  voted  against 
ffie  Taxes;  He  voted  and  spoke  against  the  bill  for  the 
compulsory  draft  of  men  for  the  army  on  the  ground 
that  only  the  States  had  the  right  to  make  such  a  draft. 
He  used  strong  language  against  it,  declaring  that  such 
a  bill  threatened  "  the  dissolution  of  the  government," 
and  that  it  would  be  "  the  solemn  duty  of  the  State  gov 
ernments  to  protect  their  own  authority  over  their  own 
militia  and  to  interpose  between  their  citizens  and  arbi 
trary  power."  It  was  one  of  the  measures  the  Hart 
ford  Convention  complained  of  as  unconstitutional  and 
dangerous.  It  was  generally  unpopular,  and  the  efforts 
of  Webster  and  others  defeated  it.  Their  legal  argu 
ments  against  its  constitutionality  were  plausible  and 
strong ;  but  the  opposite  opinion  now  prevails,  especially 

135 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 
X 

#r  wsince  the  Civil  War,  and  conscription  and  compulsory 
drafts  by  the  general  government  are  regarded  as  en 
tirely  constitutional  and  a  necessary  part  of  the  national 
government's  power.7 

Webster  also  opposed  the  various  plans  of  the  Demo 
crats  for  creating  a  national  bank  connected  with  the 
government,  and,  in  fact,  for  the  purpose  of  making 
loans  to  the  government.  His  principal  reason  was 
that  they  gave  the  bank  power  to  issue  notes  not 
redeemable  in  specie;  and  when  a  bank  of  the  United 
States  was  finally  created,  he  materially  helped  his  party 
in  making  it  a  bank  of  specie  payment.  He  was  always 
unalterably  on  the  side  of  hard  money. 

Webster  opposed  the  plan  of  carrying. ,.on_ the  war 
by  invading  Canada.  It  was  impossible  to  conquer  that 
land  of  snow.  The  war,  he  said,  was  avowedly  for  the 
protection  of  our  maritime  rights,  and  must  be  confined 
to  that  alone ;  the  enemy  must  be  fought  only  upon  the 
ocean.  The  faith  of  the  nation  was  pledged  to  its  com 
merce  ;  the  great  purpose  for  which  the  government  was 
created  was  the  protection  of  the  country's  commerce ; 
"  in  the  commerce  of  the  country  the  Constitution  had 
its  growth;  in  the  extinction  of  that  commerce  it  will 
find  its  grave." 

This  was  a  rather  narrow  view  for  his  nature,  and  so 
he  instinctively  tried  to  make  it  broad.  If  you  must 
have  war,  he  said,  make  it  on  the  ocean.  Turn  from 
your  inland  border  andTook  with  the  eye  of  justice  and 
compassion  on  your  vast  population  along  the  coast.  If 
you  are  seriously  contending  for  maritime  rights,  go 
to  the  theatre  where  alone  those  rights  can  be  defended. 
Turn  the  current  of  your  energy  to  the  navy;  increase, 
enlarge  it,  strengthen  it.  There  the  united  wishes  and 
exertions  of  the  whole  nation  will  follow  you.  Even 
our  party  divisions  cease  at  the  water's  edge.  In  pro- 

7  Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xiv,  pp.  57,  68 ;  Desty,  Fed 
eral  Constitution,  p.  99;  Story,  on  the  Constitution,  5th  edition, 
section  iip3n. 

136 


THE  HARTFORD  CONVENTION 

tecting  naval  interests  by  naval  means  you  will  arm 
yourselves  with  the  whole  power  of  national  sentiment 
and  may  command  the  whole  abundance  of  the  national 
resources. 

It  was  a  beautiful  ideal,  that  if  the  war  became  a 
purely  naval  ~waf"F6irthe  glory  of  the  ocean,  it  would 
cease  to  be.a  party  war  and  would  become  a  war  of  the 
whole  people.  So  the  policy  which,  at  the  start,  seems 
narrow,  is  made  to  seem  in  his  subtle  hands  a  broad 
Websterian  policy  after  all. 

At  home,  in  New  Hampshire,  the  Democrats,  espe 
cially  Isaac  Hill,  editor  of  the  New  Hampshire  Patriot, 
had  quite  an  unfavorable  opinion  of  Webster  which,  in 
after  years,  greatly  delighted  the  abolitionists.  Webster 
talked  too  much  in  Congress,  said  Hill,  and  ""IT'fool 
is  known  by  his  much  speaking."  "  The  self-impor 
tance  and  gross  egotism  he  displays  are  disgusting. 
You  would  suppose  him  a  great  merchant  living  in  a 
maritime  city,  and  not  a  man  reared  in  the  woods  of 
Salisbury  or  educated  in  the  wilds  of  Hanover."  His 
brazen  confidence  and  volubility  were  mistaken  for  pre 
eminent  talent.  He  was  trying  to  dissolve  the  union 
and  set  the  North  against  the  South. 

We  cannot  discuss  the  details  of  the  war  in  this 
volume.  Our  small  armies  were  for  a  time  badly  offi 
cered,  badly  handled,  and  badly  beaten.  The  Chesa 
peake  region  was  invaded  by  the  enemy,  who  burned 
the  Capitol  at  Washington,  the  President's  house,  and 
other  public  buildings.  Later  in  the  war,  with  reor 
ganized  forces  under  General  Jacob  Brown,  a  Pennsyl 
vania,  Bucks  County  Quaker,  of  natural  military  genius, 
and  with  Jackson's  victory  at  New  Orleans,  we  did  very 
much  better.  But  the  point  where  we  unexpectedly, 
to  the  surprise  of  all  the  Federalists,  excelled  and  won 
imperishable  renown  for  the  nation,  was  at  sea. 

Against  England's  thousand  frigates  our  twelve 
seemed  a  monstrous  absurdity;  and  the  government 
thought  at  one  time  of  forbidding  them  to  leave  port. 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

But  time,  as  Paul  Jones  used  to  say,  makes  all  tilings 
even ;  and  the  vast  stretches  of  the  ocean  sometimes  have 
the  same  effect.  A  thousand  frigates  are  formidable  if 
concentrated  upon  one  point;  they  would  be  formidable 
concentrated  upon  the  twelve,  if  the  twelve  would  con 
veniently  remain  in  one  place.  But  scattered  over  the 
world  of  waters  the  thousand  could  be  picked  up  by 
Napoleonic  strategy  one  by  one.  Yankee  ingenuity  and 
daring,  the  trained  American  seamanship  of  a  hundred 
years,  the  native  aptitude  for  speed  and  marksmanship, 
saw  their  opportunity.  Independently  of  the  moral 
effect,  England,  still  at  war  with  France,  could  not  afford 
to  lose  a  fine  frigate  here  and  another  there  every  few 
months,  and  to  keep  in  the  Atlantic  several  large  fleets 
employed  in  a  hopeless  chase  after  these  swift  and 
unerring  riflemen  of  the  sea.  In  six  months  the  Ameri 
can  navy  captured  as  many  ships  as  Great'  Britain  had 
lost  in  the  previous  twenty  years  of  European  wars. 

Then,  too,  there  were  the  privateers  that  swarmed 
out  of  the  Chesapeake,  the  Delaware,  the  Sound,  and 
the  New  England  bays,  with  their  mocking  names, 
"Orders  in  Council,"  the  "Dove,"  "Free  Trade." 
They  were  often  the  equals  of  the  smaller  men-of-war, 
and  they  were  sweeping  up  what  was  left  of  British  com 
merce.  The  captain  of  the  Chasseur,  after  capturing 
eighty  vessels,  some  of  them  his  superiors  in  force,  and 
clearing  the  British  channel  of  merchantmen,  issued  a 
burlesque  Orders  in  Council,  declaring  the  British 
Islands  blockaded  and  forbidding  all  other  nations  to 
trade  with  them.  It  looked  as  if,  after  all,  Webster 
might  be  right.  Concentrate  upon  the  ocean  and -the 
game  was  ours.  Sea  power  controls  the  politics  of 
the  world.8 

It  was  somewhat  curious  that  our  most  success 
ful  captains  and  crews,  both  on  warships  and  priva 
teers,  came  from  Federalist  New  England  opposed 

8  Roosevelt,  Naval  War  of  1812 ;  Coggeshall,  American 
Privateering. 

138 


THE  HARTFORD  CONVENTION 

to  the  war.  The  English  cruisers  in  time  began 
to  seize  about  as  many  of  our  merchantmen  as  we  did 
of  theirs,  and  we  were  less  able  to  bear  such  losses. 
But  it  was  a  question  whether  it  was  worth  England's 
while  to  suffer  such  heavy  losses  in  addition  to  the  war 
with  France,  merely  for  the  sake  of  the  supposed  right 
of  search.  All  this,  however,  is  another  story.  Web 
ster  is  in  Congress,  not  on  the  quarter-deck.  Many 
eminent  men  were  with  him.  Henry  Clay,  Calhoun,  and 
the  eccentric  Randolph  of  Virginia,  are  still  familiar 
names  in  history.  Then  there  were  Joseph  Hopkinson 
and  John  Sergeant  of  Pennsylvania,  Pinkney  of  Mary 
land,  Forsyth  of  Georgia,  and  a  number  of  others  con 
spicuous  in  their  time.  There  was,  of  course,  the  duel 
ling  set  among  the  southern  members;  and  Randolph 
boasted  of  being  the  best  shot  in  Virginia.  Of  extra 
ordinary  cleverness  in  speech  and  anecdote,  of  telling 
sarcasm,  vituperation  and  effrontery  in  debate,  incapable 
of  sustained  logic  or  legal  argument,  but  something  of 
a  power  in  his  way,  undeniably  interesting  with  his 
thoroughbred  saddle  horse  for  himself  and  an  equally 
good  one  for  his  negro  servant,  John  Randolph  of 
Roanoke,  as  he  always  signed  himself,  was  a  curious 
and  rather  sad  instance  of  Virginia  intellect  gone  to 
seed. 

It  was  inevitable  that  he  should  have  some  differ 
ence  of  opinion  with  Websterjn^  debate,  and  he  sent 
the  usual  challenge.  Webster,  as  a  New  Englander, 
despised "duelling ;  and  he  wrote  a  characteristic  reply. 

"  SIR  :  For  having  declined  to  comply  with  your  demand 
yesterday  in  the  House,  for  an  explanation  of  words  of  a 
general  nature,  used  in  debate,  you  now  '  demand  of  me  that 
satisfaction  which  your  insulted  feelings  require,'  and  refer 

me  to  your  friend,  Mr.  ,  I  presume,  as  he  is  the  bearer  of 

your  note,  for  such  arrangements  as  are  usual. 

"This  demand  for  explanation,  you,  in  my  judgment,  as  a 
matter  of  right,  were  not  entitled  to  make  on  me  ;^  nor  were 
the  temper  and  style  of  your  own  reply  to  my  objection  to  the 
sugar  tax  of  a  character  to  induce  me  to  accord  it  as  a  matter 
of  courtesy. 

139 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

"  Neither  can  I,  under  the  circumstances  of  the  case,  recog 
nize  in  you1  a  right  to  call  me  to  the  field  to  answer  what 
you  may  please  to  consider  an  insult  to  your  feelings. 

"  It  is  unnecessary  for  me  to  state  other  and  obvious  con 
siderations  growing  out  of  this  case.  It  is  enough  that  I  do 
not  feel  myself  bound,  at  all  times  and  under  any  circum 
stances,  to  accept  from  any  man,  who  shall  choose  to  risk  his 
own  life,  an  invitation  of  this  sort;  although  I  shall  be  always 
prepared  to  repel  in  a  suitable  manner  the  aggression  of  any 
man  who  may  presume  'upon  such  a  refusal. 
"  Your  obedient  servant, 

"DANIEL  WEBSTER." 

Nothing  ever  came  of  the  challenge,  because  so  many 
friends  of  both  the  men  had  seen  that  Randolph  had 
no  ground  for  his  complaint ;  and  they  united  in  effect 
ing  an  amicable  adjustment. 

In  1824  a  second  misunderstanding  occurred  between 
Webster  and  Randolph  which  was  expected  to  lead  to  a 
challenge.  Randolph  regarded  his  veracity  as  having 
been  questioned.  But  the  affair  was  patched  up  by 
Benton  and  has  been  discussed  in  the  Preface.9 

During  his  service  in  Congress,  Webster  lived  at 
Crawford's  Hotel,  in  Georgetown,  a  sort  of  headquar 
ters  for  Federalists.  His  old  friend  Mason  and  his 
preceptor  in  the  law  Mr.  Gore,  both  in  the  Senate,  and 
also  Rufus  King,  lived  there  with  their  wives  in  a  kind 
of  state  frequently  seen  in  those  days ;  Mr.  Gore  and 
Mr.  King  "  keeping  a  coach  and  four  horses  and  driving 
every  morning  to  the  humble  chamber  in  which  the 
Senate  met  in  consequence  of  the  destruction  of  the 
Capitol  by  the  British."  The  Federalists  clung  to  these 
old  formalities  and  to  the  old-fashioned  costume  and 
powdered  hair  of  the  revolutionary  period,  and  were 
much  ridiculed  for  it  by  the  Democrats,  who  were 
adopting  the  short  hair  and  the  less  formal  manners  and 
dress  which  have  marked  our  own  time.  Webster  was, 
at  this  time,  making  a  great  study  of  English  politics. 
Volumes  of  the  Annual  Register  and  the  Parliamen 
tary  Debates  covered  his  table. 

9  Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xvi,  p.  102. 
140 


DARTMOUTH     COLLEGE     CASE — KENNISTON     TRIAL — CON 
STITUTIONAL    CONVENTION PLYMOUTH 

ORATION 

|X* 

THE  War  of  1812  closed  with  the  Treaty  of  Ghent, 
December  24,  1814,  ending  hostilities,  but  deciding 
nothing  as  to  impressment,  right  of  search,  or  orders 
in  council,  which,  however,  England  never  seriously 
insisted  upon  again.  Soon  afterwards,  the  Battle  of 
Waterloo,  fought  in  1815,  ended  the  wonderful  career 
of  Napoleon.  HFor  fifteen  years  he  had  kept  all  Europe 
at  bay;  he  had  made  the  most  important  ideas  of  the 
French  Revolution  respectable  and  respected;  he  had 
developed  military  organization  and  strategy  beyond  all 
previous  human  calculation ;  and  turned  France  into 
a  garden  of  industry  and  financial  prosperity.  But  he 
had  used  up  her  best  sons  in  his  wars  and  made  a  gap 
in  the  French  stock  of  men  that  has  never  been  replaced. 
He  was  now  in  the  hands  of  the  English  tory  govern 
ment,  and  they  would  gladly  have  executed  him  or 
ordered  him  out  to  be  shot  as  an  enemy  of  European 
peace  and  civilization.  But  not  exactly  daring  to  do 
that,  they  sent  him  to  exile  on  the  island  of  St.  Helena, 
to  be  slowly  put  to  death  by  imprisonment  and  petty 
humiliating  annoyances  in  its  fatal  climate. 

So  far  as  we  are  concerned,  let  us  remember  that  his 
wars  gave  us  an  opportunity  for  the  development  of 
commercial  wealth,  seamanship,  and  skill  in  shipbuild 
ing  that  we  had  never  had  before  and  that  he  kept  Eng 
land  occupied  long  enough  for  us  to  wrest  from  her 
our  natural  rights  upon  the  ocean.  *-  His  downfall  and 
exile  and  the  restoration  of  the  old  monarchy  to  France 
was  the  end  of  a  long  political  period  of  extraordinary 
turmoil  and  confusion.  A  totally  new  period  began,  new 

141 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

for  England  and  new  for  America.  The  high  ascend 
ency  of  extreme  toryism  in  England,  which  had  been 
kept  up  by  fears  of  the  effects  of  French  liberalism, 
gradually  decreased  until  within  less  than  a  generation 
we  have  a  return  to  power  of  the  English  Whig  or 
Liberal  party  with  the  reform  bill,  free  trade,  and 
other  doctrines  of  the  school  of  Lord  Russell  and  Glad 
stone.  In  America,  the  success  of  the  War  of  1812 
helped  to  continue  the  Democrats  in  power  for  a  long 
time.  The  Federalist  party  was  so  unpopular  for  its 
course  in  the  war  that  it  disappeared  entirely.  The 
questions  raised  by  the  war  immediately  passed  away 
and  a  new  set  of  difficulties,  the  protective  tariff,  finan 
cial  and  banking  problems,  internal  improvements,  pub 
lic  lands,  nullification  and  slavery,  took  their  place. 

^Webster  remained  in  Congress  only  a  couple  of 
years  "after  the  war,  closing  his  service  with  the  session 
that  ended  on  the  3d  of  March,  1817.  Two  questions 
arose  towards  the  end  of  his  service  in  which  his 
conduct  was  remembered  long  afterwards ;  in  fact, 
quoted  against  him,  or  for  him,  to  the  end  of  his  life. 
One  was  the  protective  tariff  which  was  brought  up 
in  1814.  There  was  a  war  tariff  of  double  duties  at 
that  time,  and  when  this  was  repealed  along  with  the 
repeal  of  the  embargo  and  non-intercourse  acts  a  reso 
lution  was  passed  directing  the  Secretary  of  the  Treas 
ury  to  report  at  the  next  session  a  general  tariff  of 
duties ;  and  this  resolution,  Calhoun  said,  was  a  pledge 
that  the  manufactures  which  had  grown  up  during  the 
war  would  not  be  allowed  to  go  unprotected.  Webster, 
like  other  New  England  Federalists,  differed  from  Alex 
ander  Hamilton  and  the  rest  of  the  Federal  party  in 
being  considerably  inclined  to  free  trade  because  they 
were  a  community  of  ship  owners.  So  he  debated  the 
question  with  Calhoun,  said  he  was  not  the  enemy  of 
manufactures,  but  at  the  same  time  was  not  for  rearing 
them  in  hotbeds ;  "  it  was  the  true  policy  of  govern 
ment  to  suffer  the  different  pursuits  of  society  to  take 

142 


DARTMOUTH  COLLEGE  CASE 

their  own  course  and  not  to  give  excessive  bounties  or 
encouragements  to  one  over  another." 

"I  am  not  anxious  to  accelerate  the  approach  of  the 
period  when  the  great  mass  of  American  labor  shall  not  find 
its  employment  in  the  field;  when  the  young  men  of  the 
country  shall  be  obliged  to  shut  their  eyes  upon  external 
nature,  upon  the  heavens  and  the  earth,  and  immerse  them 
selves  in  close  and  unwholesome  workshops ;  when  they  shall 
be  obliged  to  shut  their  ears  to  the  bleatings  of  their  own 
flocks  upon  their  own  hills,  and  to  the  voice  of  the  lark  that 
cheers  them  at  the  plough,  that  they  may  open  them  in  dust 
and  smoke  and  steam  to  the  perpetual  whirl  of  spools  and 
spindles  and  the  grating  of  rasps  and  saws." 

Those  were  congenial  words  to  him ;  rather  his  best 
piece  of  congressional  speechmaking  so  far;  and  there 
are  only  a  few  passages  from  his  writings  that  have 
been  more  quoted.  * 

At  the  next  session,  in  j:  816,  C alhoun's  promise  was 
kept,  and  a  protective  tariff  bill,  advocated  also  by  other 
South  Carolina  representatives,  was  introduced  and 
passed.  It  placed  a  somewhat  high  duty  on  cotton  and 
woollen  goods,  iron  and  hemp,  and  killed  the  valuable 
New  England  trade  of  importing  cotton  fabrics  from 
India.  Webster  made  no  general  speech  against  it  on 
general  principles,  but  tried  to  lower  the  duties  on 
cotton,  and  also  on  iron  and  hemp,  which  the  New 
Englanders  wanted  to  obtain  cheap  because  they  were 
so  much  used  in  the  construction  of  their  ships. 

The  other  subject  in  which  he  became  conspicuous 
was  in  stopping  the  payment  of  the  government  debts 
in  the  depreciated  paper  of  the  State  banks  instead  of 
in  coin,  treasury  notes,  or  notes  of  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States.  The  custom  of  paying  in  depreciated 
paper  was  a  mere  bad  habit  more  than  anything  else, 
though  an  old  one;  and  was  most  inconvenient,  expen 
sive,  and  threatened  to  be  ruinous.  Webster's  resolu 
tion  and  speech,  which  stopped  it,  were  ever  afterward 
remembered  to  his  credit;  and  are  almost  the  only  part 

143 


—  C 

*\ 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

of  his  political  conduct  which  his  abolitionist  constitu 
ents  in  New  England  approved. 

As  already  related,  he  had  left  Portsmouth  and 
moved  to  Boston  in  August,  1816,  for  the  sake  of  in 
creasing  his  income  above  the  $2,000  a  year  of  his  New 
Hampshire  practice.  He  had  at  first  been  inclined  to 
go  to  New  York  as  the  place  where  in  the  "next  twenty 
years  the  great  scenes  to  be  enacted  in  this  country  are 
to  be  viewed.  Our  New  England  prosperity  and  im 
portance  are  passing  away."  1  This  was  the  regulation 
Federalist  lament  of  the  time  against  the  war  that 
had  injured,  or  destroyed  as  they  said,  New  England 
commerce.  It  was  not  well  founded,  and  Webster,  no 
/  doubt,  changed  his  opinion. 

His  ..home  and  library  in  Portsmouth  had  been  de 
stroyed  by  fire  in  1813,  and  in  the  winter  of  1816-17  n^s 
daughter  Grace,  a  precocious,  but  very  charming  child, 
died  of  rapid  consumption.  These  were  the  domestic 
changes  in  his  life;  and  he  now,  at  the  age  of  thirty- 
~~ve,  seemed  to  have  bade  adieu  to  political  life.  The 
political  party  that  had  put  him  into  that  life  was  gone 
never  to  return,  and  he  now  entered  upon  a  very  pros 
perous  professional  career.  His  career  in  Congress  had 
increased  his  reputation.  He  had  been  retained  in  some 
important  prize  cases  before  the  Supreme  Court  in 
Washington ;  business  poured  in  upon  him ;  and  during 
his  first  year  in  Boston  his  fees  increased  from  the 
comparatively  trifling  $2,000  of  his  New  Hampshire 
practice  to  the  very  substantial  amount  of  over  $15,000. 
The  Boston  of  that  time  was  a  town  of  only  40,000 
inhabitants.  Gardens  with  shrubs  and  trees  surrounded 
many  of  the  residences.  There  were  no  railroads, 
street  railways,  telegraph,  public  lighting,  or  any  of  the 
modern  wonders,  and  its  water  supply  came  through 
a  line  of  log  pipes  from  Jamaica  Pond.  The  town  had 
only  four  notaries  and  one  savings  bank,  still  elected 

1  Correspondence,  vol.  i,  p.  256. 
144 


DARTMOUTH  COLLEGE  CASE 

two  pound  keepers,  four  fence  viewers,  and  three  hog- 
reeves  ;  its  directory  had  a  separate  list  of  "  people  of 
color,"  and  this  was  the  character  of  the  town  for  a 
generation  and  more  after  Webster  came  to  it.  The 
people  all  knew  one  another.  The  upper  classes  were 
intimate  among  themselves,  learned,  keen,  seeking 
knowledge  from  every  source  and  intensely  interested 
in  literature  and  every  sort  of  intellectual  pursuit.  They 
undoubtedly  had  much  to  do  with  building  up  Webster  \ 
into  the  remarkable  man  he  became  in  the  next  twenty 
years. 

A  description  of  his  daily  life  by  his  sister-in-law, 
Mrs.  Lee,  discloses  the  habits  of  the  time  and  the  dinner 
hour  in  the  middle  of  the  afternoon,  a  custom  extending 
south  to  Philadelphia  down  to  Civil  War  times  and 
which  some  people  still  alive  are  'old  enough  to 
remember.  People  either  had  less  to  do  or  got  at 
their  business  earlier;  and  Webster  was  a  particularly 
early  riser,  returning  to  dinner,  Mrs.  Lee  says,  "  at 
two  or  three  o'clock  from  the  courts  or  from  his  office." 
After  dinner  he  would  throw  himself  on  the  sofa,  his 
wife  sitting  near  him,  and  his  children  squeezing  them 
selves  into  all  possible  places  and  positions. 

"  This  was  not  from  invitation  to  the  children ;  he  did 
nothing  to  amuse  them,  he  told  them  no  stories ;  it  was  the 
irresistible  attraction  of  his  character."  (Correspondence, 
vol.  i,  p.  443-) 

According  to  Mrs.  Lee  there  was  non  return  to  the 
office  after  dinner.  He  remained  at  home  the  rest  of 
the  afternoon  and  evening  rather  tired,  and  had  appa 
rently  begun  his  office  labor  very  early  in  the  morning. 

*7The  six  years  of  litigation  in  all  the  courts  and 
advice  of  all  sorts  to  all  sorts  of  clients,  to  which  Web 
ster  now  devoted  himself,  cannot  be  detailed  here.  But 
there  were  several  employments  of  a  public  nature 
which  became  conspicuous  and  form  an  important  part 
of  his  reputation. 

The  Dartmouth  College  case,  in  which  he  was  re- 
10  -r45 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

tained  on  the  side  of  the  college,  has  become  such  a 
landmark  in  our  constitutional  law  and  constitutional 
history,  and  its  consequences  have  been  so  far-reaching, 
that  it  seems  impossible  to  describe  it  too  often.  But 
its  details  would  be  less  easy  to  remember  and  we  should 
hear  much  less  of  it  if  some  commonplace  lawyer  had 
won  it  for  the  college.  Webster  touched  it  with  his 
unfailing  picturesqueness,  and  its  technical  complica 
tions  suddenly  assumed,  in  his  hands,  a  romantic 
interest. 

The  college  had  been  founded  in  1754,  at  Lebanon, 
Connecticut,  as  a  charity  school  for  the  Indians,  by  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Eleazar  Wheelock.  Its  success  led  to  further 
subscriptions,  especially  in  England,  for  enlarging  it 
and  opening  its  doors  to  students  of  the  white  race; 
and  for  this  purpose  it  was  moved  to  Hanover  on  the 
Connecticut  River,  within  the  State  of  New  Hampshire. 
As  the  Earl  of  Dartmouth,  secretary  for  the  colonies, 
had  been  a  large  subscriber,  the  college  was  named 
for  him.  In  1769  the  British  Crown  granted  a  charter, 
making  of  the  institution  a  corporation  with  a  board  of 
trustees  and  a  president,  in  the  form  familiar  to  us  in 
modern  times.  Under  this  charter  the  college  con 
tinued  its  existence  as  a  corporation  through  the  Revo 
lution  and  down  to  the  year  1815,  when  there  was 
roused  against  it  some  of  the  democratic  and  religious 
feeling  peculiar  to  that  time. 

This  feeling  had  started  some  twenty  or  thirty 
years  before  at  Yale,  where  there  was  a  party  that 
wanted  that  college  put  under  State  control,  and  finally 
succeeded  in  accomplishing  their  purpose  in  a  modified 
form.  Dr.  John  Wheelock,  son  of  the  founder  of  Dart 
mouth,  and  its  second  president,  had  been  living  at  Yale 
during  this  controversy  and  took  sides  with  the  party 
favoring  State  control.  He  was  inclined  to  be  a  Pres 
byterian  and  differed  in  religious  faith  from  the  trustees 
and  most  of  the  people  connected  with  Dartmouth,  who 
were  what  was  called  in  New  England,  Orthodox,  or, 

146 


DARTMOUTH  COLLEGE  CASE 

more  precisely,  Congregational! sts  of  the  old  Puritan 
faith  of  the  first  settlers. 

Dr.  Wheelock  finally  quarrelled  with  his  board  of 
trustees,  and  addressed  a  memorial  to  the  Legislature  of 
New  Hampshire,  asking  them  to  investigate  the  college,  / 
which,  according  to  his  account,  was  being  ruined  and/ 
perverted  from  its  original  purpose  by  the  trustees  inf 
spite  of  all  that  he  could  do  to  save  it.     He  retained  |    / 
Webster   as    his    counsel;    but    Webster,  Timling   how 
thlrigs~~were~  tending,  withdrevv""Trom"  "the  employment. 
The    Legislature    responded    to   Wheel ock's    memorial 
by  appointing  a  committee,  which  made  an  investigation 
of  the  college  and  reported  that  there  was  no  ground  for 
interference  by  the   State. 

But  the  subject  was  now  before  the  public,  and  the 
Baptists,  Methodists,  liberals,  and  nothingarians,  as 
Jeremiah  Mason  called  them,  joined  with  the  Demo- 
cratic  party  in  favor  of  State  control.  A  newly  elected 
Democratic  governor,  William  Plumer,  dealt  with  the 
subject  in  his  message,  denounced  the  college  charter 
as  a  relic  of  monarchy,  hostile  to  the  spirit  of  free 
government,  and  called  in  the  aid  of  Thomas  Jefferson, 
who  wrote  one  of  those  letters  of  vague  generalities 
which  had  given  him  the  fame  of  a  sage  among  some 
people  and  the  notoriety  of  a  demagogue  among  others.,- 
Lawyers  and  priests,  he  said,  were  trying  to  force  the 
absurd  monarchical  doctrine  of  the  inviolability  of  a 
charter  which  must  never  be  changed  because  made 
by  a  wise  preceding  generation  ;  "  in  fine,  that  the  earth 
belongs  to  the  dead  and  not  to  the  living." 

Under  this  influence  and  professing  to  .regard  Dart 
mouth  as  a  private  exclusive  institution  that  would  never 
amount  to  anything  in  that  capacity,  the  Democrats 
urged  that  its  funds  and  equipment  should  be~taken 
possession  of,  literally  seized,  by  the  paramount  author 
ity  of  the  State,  and  turned  into  a  State  university,  at 
Concord,  the  capital.  In  1816  the  Legislature  passed 
an  act  changing  its  name  from  the  "  Trustees  of  Dart- 

147 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

mouth  College  "  to  the  "  Trustees  of  Dartmouth  Uni 
versity,"  and,  among  other  alterations,  increasing  the 
number  of  trustees  and  giving  the  State  the  power  of 
appointing  some  of  them.  Among  the  trustees  ap 
pointed  under  this  act  was  Judge  Story,  who  in  politics 
was  a  moderate  or  independent  Democrat.  Under  this 
legislation  the  trustees  organized  themselves  as  the 
university,  and  got  possession  of  the  college  charter, 
its  books,  papers,  and  apparently  of  some  of  the 
buildings.2 

The  old  college  appears,  however,  to  have  gone  on 
in  its  usual  course  with  a  good  number  of  students,  who 
stood  by  it  loyally ;  and  the  Federalist  families  through 
out  the  State  were  also  loyal  to  it.  The  new  university 
seems  also  to  have  kept  itself  going  and  there  were 
thus  two  presidents  and  two  sets  of  professors  in  the 
same  village.  The  university,  however,  had  only  a 
handful  of  students,  who  in  one  instance,  with  the  aid  of 
their  professors,  undertook  to  seize  some  of  the  books 
and  papers  of  one  of  the  fraternities,  but  were  over 
powered  by  the  students  of  the  old  college  and  com 
pelled  to  surrender.3  All  this  was  good  sport  for.  the 
boys,  and  no  doubt  there  was  great  enthusiasm  among 
them. 

Such  a  state  of  affairs  could  not  of  course  continue, 
and  was  allowed  to  continue  only  while  a  case  at  law 
was  made  up  to  test  the  question  in  the  courts.  The  issue 
was  a  serious  one,  for  might  not  other  State  Legis 
latures  do  the  same  thing?  Might  not  the  Massachusetts 
Legislature  seize  Harvard  College  to  convert  it  into  a 
State  university  and  might  not  the  Connecticut  Legis 
lature  seize  Yale? 

2  Webster,  Private  Correspondence,  vol.  i,  p.  303,  and  other 
letters  of  years  1818,  1819;  Smith,  History  of  Dartmouth 
College,  Chaps.  XI  and  XII.  See  also  Shirley's  Dartmouth 
College  Causes  for  much  curious  information,  very  confusedly 
arranged. 

8  Shirley,  Dartmouth  College  Causes,  pp.  291,  292. 
148 


DARTMOUTH  COLLEGE  CASE 

In  the  lawsuit  that  was  brought  there  were  three 
legal  points: 

1.  Whether    under    the    Constitution    of    New    Hampshire 
the  Legislature  had  the   right  to  alter  or   interfere   with  the 
vested  rights  of   a  college   corporation. 

2.  Was   a   college   a   public   corporation,   like   a   town,    or 
municipality,    as   we   call  it,   whose  charter   is   always   subject 
to  change  at  the  pleasure  of  the  Legislature? 

3.  If  a  college  was  a  private  corporation,  was  its  charter 
a   contract  between  the   State  and  the  persons   to   whom  the 
charter  was  granted  ;  and  in  that  case  was  the  change  made  by 
the   Legislature   in  the   Dartmouth   charter   forbidden  by  that 
clause  in  the  National   Constitution  which  says  that  no  State 
shall  pass  any  "law  impairing  the  obligation  of  contracts?" 
This  clause  had  been  held  to  apply  to  ordinary  contracts  be 
tween  individuals,  to  contracts  to  which  a  State  was  a  party, 
and  to  certain  grants   made  by  a  State.     But  was   a  college 
charter  made  by  the  British  Crown  and  accepted  as  such  by 
New  Hampshire  such  a  grant  as  could  be  called  a  contract? 

The  question  seems  easy  enough  now  after  it  has 
all  been  settled  for  nearly  a  hundred  years  ;  but  it  was 
of  extreme  difficulty  at  that  time  when  people's  minds 
were  not  at  all  accustomed  to  the  idea  of  a  legislature 
not  being  able  to  control  corporations  it  had  created. 
In  England,  where  Parliament  is  not  limited  by  a  writ 
ten  constitution,  it  has  controlled  and  changed  universi 
ties  far  greater  than  Dartmouth,  and  has  deprived 
business  corporations  of  their  franchises,  as  in  the 
famous  case  of  the  East  India  Company  in  1858. 

The  Dartmouth  case  was  argued  in  the   Supreme  / 
CoufToT  New  Hampshire,  and  as  counsel  for  the  col-  / 
lege    appeared    Mason    and    Jeremiah    Smith,    usually 
known  as  Judge   Smith,  a  very  eminent  and  learned 
lawyer  of  that  time.     Webster,  now  retained  on  the  side  \ 
of  the  college,  was  also  in  the  case,  and  seems  to  have  \ 
addressed  the  court  in  a  highly  emotional  speech,  which, 
however,   has   not   been  preserved.     The_  decision  was 
against   the   college,    on   the   ?r™md~7K^~tfa^]]^^ 
charter  created  a  public  corporation.  esfaHlighpH  forJthe 
"" 


. 

purpose  of  "puEIic"  education;  it  was  not_in_any  sense 

149 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

a  contract  with  individuals  and,  therefore,  must  neces 
sarily  remain  in  control  of  the  Legislature  of  the  State, 

Q  it  for  the  public  benefit. 


This  decision  made  the  question  all  thlTmore  far- 
reaching  and  important.  If  the  Dartmouth  College 
charter  was  a  public  corporation,  at  the  mercy  of  the 
Legislature,  then  the  charters,  not  only  of  all  institu 
tions  of  learnings,  but  of  charity  and  benevolence,  all  over 
the  country,  would  be  forever  in  the  same  predicament.  It 
might  be  held  that  no  charter  of  any  sort  of  corporation 
could  be  regarded  as  a  contract  ;  and  forecasting  a  little 
and  extending  the  question  into  modern  times,  would  not 
the  charters  of  certain  business  corporations,  canal 
companies,  railroads,  and  steamboat  companies,  and 
possibly  companies  supplying  food  products  or  carrying 
on  any  important  function  which  could  be  called  public, 
be  outside  of  the  protection  of  the  National  Constitution 
and  subject  to  change,  regulation,  and  interference  every 
time  a  new  political  party  or  a  new  set  of  men  had  a 
majority  in  a  legislature? 

The  college  appealed  from  the  decision  of  the  New 
Hampshire  court,  and  took  the  case  before  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States  at  Washington.  Mason 
and  Judge  Smith,  apparently  feeling  that  they  had  done 
all  in  their  power  and  that  a  fresh  mind  and  a  new  point 
of  view  would  be  of  advantage,  retired  from  the  case, 
and  Webster,  at  the  request  of  the  friends  of  the  col 
lege  and  with  the  entire  consent  of  Mason  and  Judge 
Smith,  was  given  charge  of  the  appeal.  He  chose  as 
his  colleague  Joseph  Hopkinson,  an  accomplished  Phila 
delphia  lawyer  of  the  old  school,  with  many  cases  in  the 
Supreme  Court,  in  Congress  at  that  time,  and  a  great 
admirer  and  friend  of  Webster.  They  argued  the 
appeal  with  John  Holmes  and  William  Wirt,  the  Attor 
ney-General  of  the  United  States,  against  them. 

Holmes  was  a  clever  Maine  politician,  who  was 
afterwards  in  the  Senate  at  the  time  of  Webster's  reply 
to  Hayne,  and  made  some  good  speeches  in  that  great 

150 


DARTMOUTH  COLLEGE  CASE 

debate.  But  as  a  lawyer  he  was  hardly  equal  to  the 
Dartmouth  College  case.  Wirt  was  of  very  consider 
able  ability  and  eloquence,  but  so  busy  as  Attorney- 
General  that  he  probably  had  not  had  time  to  prepare 
himself  for  such  a  difficult  case.  Webster,  who  was 
by  no  means  given  =  to  underestimating  an  opponent, 
thought  very  poorly  6f  both  Wirt's  and  Holmes's  argu 
ments.  Judge  Bell,  of  the  New  Hampshire  court,  that 
had  decided  against  the  college,  came  on  to  Washington 
to  hear  the  argument,  but  got  up  and  left  the  court 
room  in  the  midst  of  Holmes's  speech ;  out  of  disgust, 
Webster  thought,  at  such  a  weak  performance.  So 
much,  however,  has  been  said  on  the  gloriousness  of  the 
college  side  that  one  would  like  to  hear  what  the  friends 
of  the  university  thought.  But  it  is  difficult  to  find 
anything  except  a  small  scrap. 

"The  two  speeches  of  Wirt  and  Webster  in  the  college 
case  were  as  good  as  any  I  have  ever  heard.  Webster  was 
unfair  in  his  statement,  for  which  he  deserved  and  received 
castigation ;  but  his  argument  was  able  and  his  peroration  elo 
quent.  He  appeared  himself  to  be  much  affected ;  and  the 
audience  was  silent  as  death."  (Webster,  Works,  National 
Edition,  vol.  xvii,  p.  548.) 

In  the  argument  in  the  State  Court,  the  chief  labor 
of  preparing  the  brief  appears  to  have  fallen  upon  Judge 
Smith,  and  he  quite  exhausted  the  subject.  Nothing 
of  any  consequence  could  very  well  be  added  to  his  col 
lection  of  arguments  and  precedents.  This  was  well 
known  among  New  England  lawyers,  and  Judge 
Smith's  argument,  though  not  published,  was  generally 
held  among  the  profession  to  have  been  a  remarkable 
one.  This  put  Webster  in  a  somewhat  awkward  posi 
tion,  which  he  felt  very  keenly.  He  had  been  chosen 
largely  because  he  could  by  his  oratory  and  broad  views 
arouse  the  feeling  and  political  sympathy  of  the  Supreme 
Court ;  but  the  real  basis  of  his  argument,  the  technical 
legal  part,  'must  all  be  taken  from  Judge  Smith's  brief 
and  notes.  In  fact,  members  of  the  Bar  were  already 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

twitting  him  by  saying  that -now  they  would  have  a 
chance  to  know  what  Judge  Smith's  argument  had 
really  been.  He  told  all  this  frankly  in  several  letters 
to  Mason  and  Judge  Smith  and  said  that  he  expected 
to  do  no  more  than  recite  their  arguments,  and  that  the 
rest  would  be  "  nonsense,"  as  he  called  it,  that  is,  ora 
tory.  In  this  way  he  strove  to  save  himself  from 
appearing  to  pose  among  his  brethren  in  plumes  bor 
rowed  from  two  men  who  were  regarded  as  his  superiors 
in  legal  experience  and  learning. 

Technically  there  was  only  one  question  before  the 
Supreme  Court  and  that  was  whether  the  acts  of  the 
New  Hampshire  Legislature  altering  the  college  charter 
came  within  the  clause  of  the  National  Constitution 
prohibiting  the  States  from  passing  laws  impairing  the 
obligation  of  contracts.  It  was  on  this  point  alone 
that  the  case  had  been  appealed,  and  it  was  the  only 
point  on  which  it  could  be  appealed  and  give  the 
Supreme  Court  jurisdiction.  But  with  the  decision  of 
the  State  Court  against  him  on  this  point,  the  demo 
cratic  and  States'  rights  feeling  of  the  country  support 
ing  that  decision,  and  several  of  the  judges  of  the  Su 
preme  Court  known  to  favor  the  State  Court  decision, 
Webster  felt  very  uncertain  about  winning  on  this  one 
point.  He  sought  wider  ground  and  wanted  to  argue 
that  the  acts  of  the  New  Hampshire  Legislature  were 
void  because  they  violated  the  New  Hampshire  Consti 
tution  by  depriving  the  college,  without  its  consent, 
of  its  long-established  vested  rights,  and  that  even 
without  the  provisions  of  the  New  Hampshire  Constitu 
tion  the  Legislature  could  not  as  a  matter  of  general 
law  interfere  with  vested  rights.  He  directed  several 
suits  to  be  brought  about  the  college  property  between 
citizens  of  New  Hampshire  and  Vermont,  which,  being 
suits  between  citizens  of  different  States,  could  on  that 
ground  be  taken  to  the  Supreme  Court  at  Washington 
and  raise  all  the  questions  he  wanted  to  argue.  These 
he  hoped  to  fall  back  upon  if  he  failed  in  the  Supreme 

152 


DARTMOUTH  COLLEGE  CASE 

Court  on  the  one  narrow  point  of  impairing  the  obliga 
tion  of  contracts. 

At. the  same  time,  however,  in  arguing  this  point  of 
obligation  of  contracts  he  managed  to  introduce  his 
other  argument,  that  the  acts  of  the  New  Hampshire 
Legislature  were  void  because  interfering  with  vested 
rights,  contrary  to  the  New  Hampshire  Constitution. 
He  frankly  admitted  to  the  court  that  this  argument 
was  irrelevant,  but  gave  a  good  excuse  for  making  it. 

"  I  am  aware  of  the  limits  which  bound  the  jurisdiction  of 
the  court  in  this  case,  and  that  on  this  record  nothing  can 
be  decided  but  the  single  question  whether  those  acts  are 
repugnant  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  Yet  it 
may  assist  in  forming  an  opinion  of  their  true  nature  and 
character,  to  compare  them  with  these  fundamental  principles, 
introduced  into  the  State  governments  for  the  purpose  of 
limiting  the  exercise  of  the  legislative  power,  and  which  the 
Constitution  of  New  Hampshire  expresses  with  great  fulness 
and  accuracy."  (Works,  Edition  1851,  vol.  v,  p.  468.) 

He  is  supposed  also  to  have  slipped  in  a  long  argu 
ment  on  the  wickedness  of  the  Democratic  party  in 
attacking  and  desiring  to  destroy  an  institution  of  learn 
ing  out  of  mere  party  spite  and  jealousy.  He  enlarged 
on  the  danger  of  such  invasions.  This  is  supposed  to 
have  been  that  part  of  his  argument  which  he  says  was 
"  left  out "  of  the  printed  report  of  it.4  If  the  surmise 
is  correct,  that  the  part  left  out  was  of  this  nature, 
it  was  no  doubt  for  effect  on  the  Federalist  members 
of  the  court,  especially  Chief  Justice  Marshall.  It  was 
of  course  put  in  legal  and  delicate  language  and  not 
in  stump  speech  style.  It  naturally  ran  into  and  was 
connected  with  his  other  point,  that  as  a  matter  of  New 
Hampshire  constitutional  law  and  as  a  matter  of  general 
law  without  the  New  Hampshire  Constitution  the 
Legislature  had  no  right,  and  should  have  no  right,  to 
interfere  with  vested  rights  against  the  will  and  consent 
of  the  holders  of  those  rights.  These  arguments,  while 

4  Shirley,  Dartmouth  College  Causes,  p.  237. 
153 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

in  a  strict  technical  sense  irrelevant,  were  really  very 
much  in  point,  because  they  showed  what  must  have 
been  the  intention  of  the  framers  of  the  National  Con 
stitution  in  adopting  the  clause  forbidding  the  States 
to  pass  laws  impairing  the  obligation  of  contracts.  The 
intention  must  have  been  to  protect  vested  rights  against 
party  malice  and  sudden  and  excited  changes  of  feel 
ing  in  the  population  of  a  State,  whether  the  name 
applied  to  such  changes  was  agrarian,  populist,  federal 
ist,  or  democratic. 

It  was  in  this  way  that  Webster  made  his  argu 
ment  powerful.  Three-fourths  of  his  argument  was 
devoted  to  these  ideas  and  only  the  remaining  fourth 
to  direct  argument  on  the  constitutional  clause  about 
impairing  the  obligation  of  contracts.  He  had  pre 
sumably  been  put  in  charge  of  the  college's  case  to  make 
just  such  an  appeal  because  he  was  better  equipped  for 
that  purpose  than  either  Mason  or  Judge  Smith. 

His  argument  of  several  hours  to  the  court  has  been 
preserved  in  his  works  in  only  its  dry,  legal  form;  but 
tradition  and  the  testimony  of  Dr.  Goodrich,  who  heard 
it,  have  always  placed  it  among  the  remarkable  speeches 
of  his  life.  He  began  in  his  usual  easy  way,  it  is  said, 
which  afterwards  became  so  familiar  to  the  country; 
almost  conversational;  reasoning  out  his  subject  in  the 
clearest,  simplest  way ;  occasionally  his  voice  rising  and 
his  dark  eye  flashing,  as  some  important  thought  or 
one  of  those  similes  drawn  from  nature  aroused  him. 
Judge  Story  had  prepared  to  take  notes,  but  sat  hour 
after  hour  listening  without  putting  {>en  to  paper. 
"  Everything  was  so  clear,"  he  afterwards  said,  "  that 
not  a  note  seemed  necessary." 

Not  until  the  close  of  the  merely  technical  argument 
did  Webster  permit  himself  to  appeal  powerfully  to  the 
court  on  the  question  of  public  policy,  whether  all  the 
charitable  and  learned  institutions  in  the  country  should 
be  stripped  of  their  property  at  the  whim  of  legislatures. 
On  this  point  no  other  man  in  the  country  could  be 

154 


DARTMOUTH  COLLEGE  CASE 

so  impressive.  It  was  the  cause  he  showed,  not  merely 
of  institutions  and  corporations,  but  of  every  man  in 
the  country  who  owned  property :  "  Shall  our  State 
legislatures  be  allowed  to  take  that  which  is  not  their 
own,  to  turn  it  from  its  original  use  and  apply  it  to 
such  ends  and  purposes  as  they,  in  their  discretion, 
shall  see  fit?" 

He  started  to  speak  of  his  personal  relations  to  the 
college.  "  It  is,  as  I  have  said,  a  small  college, « and 
yet  there  are  those  who  love  it."  His  feelings  almost 
got  the  better  of  him,  his  eyes  filled  with  tears  and  his 
voice  choked.  It  was  one  of  those  powerful  emotions 
which  were  natural  to  him  and  better  controlled  in 
later  years.  He  went  on,  but  in  such  broken  words 
of  tenderness  of  his  father,  mother,  brother,  and  the 
trials  of  his  early  life,  that  Dr.  Goodrich  absorbed  in 
listening  could  not  recollect  exactly  what  he  said. 

"  The  court  room  during  those  two  or  three  minutes  pre 
sented  an  extraordinary  spectacle.  Chief  Justice  Marshall,  with 
his  tall  gaunt  figure  bent  over,  as  if  to  catch  the  slightest  whis 
per,  the  deep  furrows  of  his  cheek  expanded  with  emotion 
and  his  eyes  suffused  with  tears ;  Mr.  Justice  Washington 
at  his  side,  with  his  small  and  emaciated  frame  and  coun 
tenance  more  like  marble  than  I  ever  saw  on  any  other  human 
being — leaning  forward  with  an  eager,  troubled  look;  and 
the  remainder  of  the  court,  at  the  extremities,  pressing,  as  it 
were,  towards  a  single  point,  while  the  audience  below  were 
wrapping  themselves  round  in  closer  folds  beneath  the  bench, 
to  catch  each  look  and  every  movement  of  the  speaker's  face." 
(Curtis,  Webster,  vol.  i,  p.  171.) 

The  argument  of  the  cause  occupied  three  days — 
March  loth,  nth,  and  I2th,  of  the  year  1818.  The 
next  day  the  Chief  Justice  announced  that  there  were 
different  opinions,  that  some  of  the  judges  had  not 
formed  opinions,  and  that  a  decision  could  not  be  ex 
pected  until  the  next  term,  which  meant  the  following 
year.  Chief  Justice  Marshall  was  generally  believed  to 
be  on  the  side  of  the  college;  Judge  Story  against  it, 
because  he  had  been  one  of  the  trustees  of  the  new 

iS5 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

f 

university  and  was  a  Democrat,  though  an  independent 
one.     Webster  summed  up  the  situation: 

"The  chief  and  Washington,  I  have  no  doubt,  are  with 
us.  Duvall  and  Todd  perhaps  against  us;  the  other  three 
holding  up.  I  cannot  much  doubt  but  that  Story  will  be  with 
us  in  the  end,  and  I  think  we  have  much  more  than  an  even 
chance  for  one  of  the  others."  ( Private  Correspondence,  vol.  i, 
P-  277.) 

The  case  had  already  attracted  wide  attention  all 
over  the  country ;  and  as  the  judges  would  be  deliberat 
ing  on  it  for  a  year,  both  sides  set  to  work  to  influence 
them  through  public  opinion.  The  new  university  had 
the  decision  and  opinion  of  the  New  Hampshire  court 
printed  and  circulated.  The  old  college  circulated  Web 
ster's  argument  among  all  important  persons. 

' '  It  has  already  been  or  shortly  will  be/  writes  President 
Brown  of  the  old  college,  '  read  by  all  the  commanding  men 
of  New  England  and  New  York ;  and  so  far  as  it  has  gone  it 
has  united  them  all,  without  a  single  exception  within  my 
knowledge,  in  one  broad  and  impenetrable  phalanx  for  our  de 
fense  and  support.'  "  ( Shirley,  Dartmouth  College  Causes, 
p.  271.) 

The  phalanx,  the  enthusiastic  President  said,  was  ex 
tending  southward,  and  Chancellor  Kent,  whose  opinion 
was  everywhere  greatly  respected,  had  been  won  over. 
Accordingly,    when    February,   ,1819,    arrived,    Chief 
Justice    Marshall    had    as    usual    brought    round    the 
Supreme  Court  to  his  own  way  of  thinking,  and  with 
clue   solemnity  he  handed  down   an  opinion   reversing 
the  New  Hampshire  court  and  deciding  that  the  college 
I  was  a  private  corporation  whose  charter  was  a  contract 
\  that  could  not  be  altered  by  the  Legislature  without  the 
i-consent  of  the  college.5 

The  decision  immediately  became  a  cornerstone  and 
foundation  in  American  constitutional  law.  It  is  doubt 
ful  if  any  case  has  been  so  much  cited,  used,  and  relied 
upon  by  American  lawyers  and  judges.  In  the  "  Ameri- 

6  Shirley,  Dartmouth  College  Causes,  pp.  201,  264-267,  268- 
272,  293,  294. 

156 


KENNISTON  TRIAL 

can  Reports"  it  is  cited  nine  hundred  and  seventy  times.8 
More  than  that,  the  vast  business  operations  of  the  whole 
continent  have  been  built  up  upon  it.  It  has  been  not 
only  all  our  institutions  of  learning  and  charity  that 
have  been  saved  from  spoliation,  and  Democratic  jeal 
ousy,  but  our  great  railroad  and  steamboat  systems  and 
great  enterprises  of  trade  have  been  protected  from  the 
granger,  populist,  and  socialist  movements,  which  at 
times  would  have  annihilated  them.  It  may  be  true, 
as  is  sometimes  said,  that  it  has  in  later  times  protected 
them  too  well.  But  that  is  a  modern  limitation,  a  mod 
ern  problem  to  be  solved.  They  had  to  be  protected  in 
the  beginning  or  they  could  not  have  existed  at  all,  and 
they  are  entitled  at  all  times  to  a  certain  amount  of 
stability  and  protection. 

A  curious  criminal  case,  in  which  Webster  was  coun 
sel  for  the  defense  at  this  period,  attracted  much  atten 
tion  in  New  England.  A  certain  Major  Goodridge 
dragged  himself  into  the  toll-house  on  the  road  between 
Exeter,  New  Hampshire,  and  Newburyport,  Massa 
chusetts,  late  one  night,  said  he  had  been  robbed  and 
beaten,  showed  a  pistol  shot  through  his  left  hand, 
and  then  fell  into  a  delirium.  When  recovered  he  re 
turned  with  a  lantern  and  some  persons  to  the  place 
of  the  robbery,  where  they  found  his  watch  and  papers 
scattered  on  the  ground.  Great  sympathy  was  felt 
for  him  throughout  the  neighborhood,  and  many  people 
assisted  him  in  the  search  for  the  robbers.  He  first 
charged  some  poor  people  named  Kenniston,  in  whose 
cellar  he  professed  to  have  found  a  piece  of  gold  and  a 
ten-dollar  note,  both  identified  by  private  marks  which 
he  said  he  placed  on  all  his  money.  Next,  with  the  aid 
of  a  witch-hazel  conjurer,  he  found  some  gold  and 
papers  on  the  property  of  the  toll-gate  keeper;  and 
several  others  he  accused  in  the  same  way. 

Most  people  were  entirely  on.  the  side  of  Major 
Goodridge.  But  a  few  doubted  his  story  and  retained 
WTebster  to  defend  the  persons  he  accused.  The  inves- 

8  Webster   Centennial  at  Dartmouth,  p.  285. 
157 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

tigation  finally  centred  on  the  trial  of  the  Ketinistons, 
whose  previous  character  was  good  and  who  had  not 
passed  any  money,  or  been  seen  to  have  any,  since  the 
supposed  robbery. 

Webster  adopted  the  theory  that  Goodridge  was  his 
own  robber,  and  had  fired  the  pistol  shot  through  his 
own  hand.  It  seemed  like  an  improbable  supposition 
at  the  start;  but,  as  Webster  told  the  jury,  the  range  of 
human  motives  is  almost  infinite.  Goodridge  may  have 
been  moved  by  a  desire  to  avoid  payment  of  his  debts 
or  by  a  whimsical  ambition  for  distinction.  His  story 
was  that  the  pistol  of  the  robber  went  off  just  as  he 
grasped  it  with  his  left  hand.  But  the  physician  who 
attended  him  found  no  marks  of  powder  on  his  hand; 
and  from  appearances  the  wound  was  probably  inflicted 
by  a  weapon  held  some  feet  away.  There  were  marks 
of  powder,  however,  on  the  coat  sleeve,  and  the  ball 
had  apparently  passed  through  the  sleeve  as  well  as 
the  hand.  The  major,  Webster  said,  had  intended  to 
shoot  only  through  his  sleeve  and  the  ball  had  acciden 
tally  penetrated  the  hand. 

Webster  enlarged  this  point  with  wonderful  skill 
and  added  greatly  to  his  reputation  as  a  cross-examiner. 
The  JCennistons  were  acquitted ;  and  another  person, 
one  Jackman,  whom  Goodridge  accused,  was  also  ac 
quitted  after  two  trials.  The  toll-gate  keeper  then 
brought  an  action  for  a  malicious  prosecution  against 
Goodridge,  a  verdict  for  a  large  sum  was  recovered, 
and  Goodridge  left  New  England  a  disgraced  man. 

Twenty  years  afterwards,  when  Webster  was  travel 
ling  in  western  New  York  with  his  wife,  he  was  sur 
prised  at  the  manner  of  a  man  who  waited  on  them  at 
a  country  hotel.  The  man  was  agitated  and  tried  to 
keep  his  back  turned ;  and  it  was  not  till  he  was  leaving 
the  hotel  that  Webster  learned  that  his  name  was  Good 
ridge/ 

7  Harvey's  Reminiscences,  p.    101 ;   Curtis,  vol.   i,  pp.   171- 

175- 

158 


CONSTITUTIONAL  CONVENTION 

1?rom  November,  1820,  until  January,  1821,  Web 
ster  took  part  in  the  convention  which  met  to  frame 
a  constitution  for  Massachusetts.  "~  The  separation  of 
Maine  and  its  formation  into  a  State  in  1820,  partly  to 
please  its  people,  who  had  begun  to  have  ideas  and  de 
velopment  of  their  own,  and  partly  to  strengthen  the 
northern  anti-slavery  vote  in  Congress,  made  necessary 
some  changes  in  the  old  Constitution  of  Massachusetts 
adopted  in  1 780 ;  and  it  was  thought  a  good  opportunity 
for  a  general  revision. 

Great  care  was  taken  in  selecting  the  delegates  to 
this  convention,  and  it  was  a  picked  body  of  men  from 
all  over  the  State,  at  a  time  when  there  was  much 
enthusiasm  for  the  great  problems  of  government  and 
for  things  intellectual  in  New  England.  Chief  Justice 
Parker  and  Judge  Story  were  members  of  it ;  and  every 
walk  of  life,  commerce  and  agriculture,  as  well  as  the 
law,  sent  its  best  ability. 

It  was  an  audience  that  could  thoroughly  appreciate 
Webster.  He  was  at  home  in  it ;  could  let  himself 
out;  show  his  alertness,  abounding  vigor,  and  fund 
of  knowledge.  He  was  at  that  period  of  his  life  "the 
most  living  man,"  some  one  said  that  they  had  ever 
known.  He  had  little  of  the  repose  and  ponderousness 
of  his  later  years ;  and  the  mere  amount  of  labor  he 
could  perform  impressed  people  as  much  as  the  ease, 
and  readiness  of  his  ability. 

The  abolitionist  historians  who  search  so  hard  for 
some  point,  where  what  seems  to  them  his  peculiar  form 
of  wickedness  began,  could  scarcely  find  a  better  place 
than  this  convention.  There  were  not  a  few  radicals 
in  the  convention  who  leaned  towards  considerable 
Democratic  changes  in  the  Constitution ;  but  'Webster 
opposed  them  and  took  his  stand  with  the  conservatives, 
who  thought  the  Constitution  very  nearly  right  as  it 
was,  and  favored  but  few  alterations.  Webster  favored 
the  removal  of  the  declaration  of  a  belief  in  Christian 
ity  as  a  qualification  for  office,  and  it  was  removed. 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

/He  advocated  retaining  the  property  basis  of  the 
Senate  by  which  that  body  was  chosen  in  districts  in 
proportion  to  the  amount  of  taxable  property  in  each 
district.  The  Democratic  radicals  complained  that  this 
gave  an  advantage  to  the  richer  districts,  and  Webster 
answered  them  in  a  notable  speech,  showing  the  neces 
sity  for  a  different  origin  for  the  two  Houses  of  the 
Legislature,  the  one  to  represent  individuals  and  popu 
lation,  the  other  to  represent  property,  and  the  two  to 
act  as  a  check  on  each  other.  He  succeeded  in  having 
the  property  basis  of  the  Senate  retained;  but  in  after 
years  it  was  changed.  He  also  made  a  conservative 
speech  on  the  independence  of  the  judiciary.  ^ 

Judge  Story,  who  also  distinguished  himself  in  the 
convention,  said  that  the  struggle  was  to  prevent  mis 
chief  to  the  Constitution.  They  strove  to  preserve  what 
they  already  had  rather  than  to  establish  anything  new. 
They  acted  mostly  on  the  defensive,  and  congratulated 
themselves  on  repelling  the  most  Democratic  attacks. 
It  was  one  of  the  first  occasions  when  Webster  showed 
the  conservatives  of  the  country  how  much  he  could 
do  for  them ;  and  before  long  they  took  him  into  their 
service  for  life. 

" '  Our  friend  Webster,'  says  Judge  Story,  '  has  gained  a 
noble  reputation.  ...  It  was  a  glorious  field  for  him,  and 
he  has  had  an  ample  harvest.  The  whole  force  of  his  great 
mind  was  brought  out,  and  in  several  speeches  he  commanded 
universal  admiration.  He  always  led  the  van,  and  was  most 
skilful  and  instantaneous  in  attack  and  retreat.  He  fought, 
as  I  have  told  him,  in  the  imminent  deadly  breach,  and  all  I 
could  do  was  to  skirmish  in  aid  of  him  upon  some  of  the 
enemy's  outposts.  On  the  whole,  I  never  was  more  proud  of 
any  display  than  his  in  my  life.'"  (Life  of  Story,  vol.  i, 
P-  395-) 

In  the  midst  of  his  labors  in  the  convention,  he  pre 
pared  and  delivered  ^t  Plymouth  on  the  22d  of  Decem 
ber,  1820,  the  oration  in  celebration  of  the  two  hundredth 
anniversary  of  the  landing  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  from 
the  Mayflower,  on  the  bleak  and  inhospitable  winter 

160 


PLYMOUTH  ORATION 

coast,  the  first  settlement  of  New  England.  These  ad 
dresses  or  orations  on  public  anniversaries  were  in  that 
century  more  characteristic  of  America  than  of  Euro 
pean  nations.  We  made  more  of  them.  This  particu 
lar  one  at  Plymouth  seems  to  have  been  an  advance  on 
its  predecessors  and  attracted  wide  attention. 

Mr.  Ticknor  has  described  the  occasion.  How  he 
drove  with  Webster  and  his  family  from  Boston  to 
Plymouth.  Other  people  from  Boston  were  driving 
down  for  the  celebration,  and  they  all  met  in  the  little 
half-way  house  for  dinner  and  "  had  a  very  merry  time," 
in  Boston  fashion.  In  the  oration  next  day  Webster 
was  very  impressive ;  and  Ticknor  goes  on  to  describe 
his  experiences. 

"As  soon  as  we  got  home  to  our  lodgings  all  the  principal 
people  then  in  Plymouth  crowded  about  him.  He  was  full  of 
animation  and  radiant  with  happiness.  But  there  was  some 
thing  about  him  very  grand  and  imposing  at  the  same  time. 
.  .  .  I  never  saw  him  at  any  time  when  he  seemed  to  me 
to  be  more  conscious  of  his  own  powers  or  to  have  a  more 
true  and  natural  enjoyment  of  their  possession.  ...  At  the 
ball  that  followed  (the  next  day)  he  was  agreeable  to  every 
body  and  nothing  more ;  but  when  we  came  home  he  was  as 
frolicsome  as  a  school-boy,  laughing  and  talking  and  making 
merry  with  Mrs.  Webster,  Mrs.  Davis,  and  Mrs.  Rotch,  the 
daughter  of  his  old  friend  Stockton,  till  two  o'clock  in  the 
morning."  (Curtis,  vol.  i,  p.  193.) 

>"Trie  address  contained  a  notable  attack  on  slavery 
and  the  slave  trade  which  Webster  little  dreamed  would 
be  quoted  against  him  as  an  inconsistency  thirty  years 
afterwards.  Everywhere  when  printed  the  address  was 
received  with  what  now  seems  like  extravagant  praise. 
Old  John  Adams  wrote :  "  It  will  be  read  five  hundred 
years  hence  with  as  much  rapture  as  it  was  heard.  It 
ought  to  be  read  at  the  end  of  every  century,  and  indeed 
at  the  end  of  every  year  forever  and  ever."  Webster 
himself,  ten  years  after  its  delivery,  thought  it  the  best 
of  his  efforts.8 

8  Correspondence,  vol.  i,  p.  490. 
ii  161 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

In  his  excellent  address  at  Dartmouth  College  in 
1901,  Mr.  McCall  justly  observed  that  this  Plymouth 
oration,  when  read  in  our  time,  seems  full  of  platitudes, 
and  a  tendency  to  grandiose  oratory ;  and  it  is  certainly 
not  in  Webster's  best  and  most  distinctive  style.  Its 
extraordinary  popularity  at  the  time  of  its  delivery  was 
probably  because  its  method  and  matter  were  new. 
There  had  been  occasional  addresses  of  this  sort  before, 
Fourth  of  July  orations,  the  famous  addresses  on  the 
Anniversary  of  the  Boston  Massacre,  and  plenty  of 
anniversary  sermons.  But  Webster  spread  out  into  a 
broader  field,  commented  in  a  philosophical  way  on  the 
origin  of  New  England,  the  character  and  ideas  of  her 
people,  and  their  effect  on  the  Revolution  and  subse 
quent  history.  We  had  then  no  adequate  histories  of 
colonial  times  or  of  the  Revolution.  Bancroft,  Hil- 
dreth,  and  Fiske  were  unknown,  so  that  Webster's 
clear  statements  of  facts  and  philosophizing  on  them 
were  altogether  new  and  fresh  to  our  people.  He 
made  everyone  proud  who  could  trace  their  lineage  back 
to  New  England.  In  short,  he  raised  the  occasional 
address  to  new  and  broader  uses.  But  his  method 
and  thought  about  New  England  and  the  Revolution 
have  now  been  repeated  so  often  in  ever  varying  forms, 
that  they  seem  absurdly  trite  and  commonplace., 

-.This  Plymouth  oration,  however,  is  said  'to  have 
been  the  beginning  of  Webster's  fame  in  the  country 
at  large.  It  gave  the  country  a  new  view  of  his  capac 
ity;  more  so  than  anything  he  had  done  in  Congress 
or  at  the  Bar.  It  was,  in  fact,  his  first  opportunity  to 
address  the  whole  country  on  a  subject  in  which  the 
whole  country  was  interested.  Before  that  he  had 
always  spoken  to  more  or  less  restricted  audiences. 
But  this  enlarged  view  of  the  characteristics  of  the 
original  New  Englanders  appealed  to  everyone,  and 
especially  to  their  descendants  scattered  over  the  coun 
try  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Ohio.  It  was  read  every 
where  and  at  a  period  when  the  attention  of  people  was 

162 


PLYMOUTH  ORATION 

not  absorbed  by  such  a  multitude  of  literary  products 
as  it  is  in  our  time. 

He  was  not  likely  to  be  left  long  in  private  life.  In 
the  two  years  following  "the "Plymouth  oration  he  was 
engaged  in  only  two  cases  of  much  public  importance. 
One  of  them  was  the  case  of  La  Jeune  Eugenie,  a  slave 
ship  under  the  French  flag,  captured  on  the  coast  of 
Africa.  Webster  argued  that  as  the  slave  trade  was 
not  legalized  by  France  and  was  contrary  to  the  law 
of  nature  and  o>f  nations,  the  French  owners  of  the 
vessel  had  lost  all  claim  to  her  when  she  was  captured 
by  an  American  cruiser  in  the  midst  of  her  nefarious 
calling;  and  this  argument  was  successful  with  his 
friend  Judge  Story,  who  presided  in  the  Circuit  Court 
where  the  proceedings  in  condemnation  of  the  vessel 
were  taken.  The  other  case  of  importance  was  his  de 
fense  of  Judge  Prescott,  a  probate  judge  in  Boston, 
who,  being  compensated  by  fees  and  not  by  a  fixed 
salary,  had  taken  fees  and  had  held  special  courts  not 
authorized  by  statute. 


163 


1 


VI 

THE     MISSOURI     COMPROMISE — GREEK     INDEPENDENCE — 
TARIFF    OF    1824 GIBBONS    VS.    OGDEN 

WEBSTER'S  law  practice  in  Boston,  described  in  the 
last  chapter,  was  all  that  he  was  allowed  to  indulge  in 
by  the  public.  A  committee  of  gentlemen  waited  on  him 
in  the  autumn  of  1822  to  offer  him.  the  .nomination  for 
Congress.  It  had  always  been  his  intention  to  return 
at  some  time  to  public  life.  He  had  ambitions  and  he 
knew  he  had  the  ability  for  that  service.  But  he  wanted 
to  make  a  little  more  money  at  the  Bar.  He  had 
assumed  the  payment  of  his  father's  debts  and  had  never 
been  able  to  discharge  them  until  the  recent  increase  of 
jhis  practice  in  Boston.  He  was  ajayish  and  careless 

/spender  of  m_9B£X_ai}4  LJ*§.4.  -s_a^?L  M^S  mYest9r-  ^n 
f  fact,  he  had  no  idea  of  saving  or  growing  rich.  His 
judgment  in  investments  and  savings,  so  far  as  his  own 
affairs  were  concerned,  was  very  nearly  worthless. 
The  intellectual  power  which  raised  him  so  far  above 
his  fellows  in  law,  public  finance,  and  national  banking, 
sank  away  and  disappeared  entirely  when  his  own  pri- 
j  vate  finances  were  concerned.  In  such  matters  he  was 
not  a  whit  above  the  multitude,  who  never  can  have 
anything  except  what  they  make  from  month  to  month. 
He  could  make  very  large  sums  from  month  to  month 
and  could  have  kept  this  up  to  old  age,  but  it  would  all 
have  been  scattered  as  fast  as  made. 

He  did  not  exactly  like  going  back  into  public  life 
in  the  same  position  from  which  he  had  retired  six 
years  before.  He  was  now  forty  years  old^  and  had 
rather  considered  himself  entitled  to  promotion.  But 
he  already  owed  to  the  people  of  Boston  so  much  of 
his  success  and  distinction  and  his  opportunities  in  the 
constitutional  convention,  that  he  could  not  very  well 

164 


THE  MISSOURI  COMPROMISE 

refuse  this  new  and  honorable  gift.     He  was  elected 
without  difficulty  and  took  his  seat  in  December,  1823.     * 

As  we  are  now  starting  on  the  great  political  period|  ' 
of  his  career,  it  may  be  said  here  once  for  all  that  hid 
numerous  elections  to  Congrgfs^and  the  Senate  during 
the  rest  of  his  life  seem  to  have  been  accomplished 
with  hardly  any  difficulty.  There  had  been  something 
of  a  contest  in  his  New  Hampshire  election,  but  in 
his  elections  to  represent  Boston  he  always  won  in  a 
canter,  and  once  by  a  vote  that  needed  very  little  to 
make  it  unanimous.  Politically,  he  seems  to  have  been  1 
born  with  a  golden  spoon  in  His  mouth.  But  there  was 
no  luck  or  chance  about  it  except  the  conditions  of  the 
time.  The  Boston  of  his  day  was  not  the  metropolitan 
city  of  our  time,  with  fully  half  its  population  Irish 
Roman  Catholics  and  foreigners,  but  an  old  established, 
homogeneous  New  England  community,  everybody  of 
the  same  race  and  the  same  religion,  everybody  knowing 
every oody,  the  upper  and  well-educated  classes  ruling, 
as  a  matter  of  course,  and  literary  skill,  learning,  and 
cultivation  respected,  even  exalted,  as  they  have  never 
been  before  or  since  anywhere  in  this  country.  Web 
ster,  with  his  previous  training,  fitted  into  it  so  exactly, 
was  so  exactly  one  of  them,  that  these  extremely 
rationalistic  and  vigorous  people  were  sending  to  Con 
gress  simply  a  piece  of  themselves. 

They   created   him,   made   him   like   themselves   by 
long   years   of   their   environment,    developed   him   by 
praise,  applause,  and  confidence;  and  he  never  could 
have    become   the    man    he    finally     was    without    the 
long  years  of  service  they  gave  him  in  Congress.     He 
never  could  of  course  have  become  the  man  he  was 
without  those  very  remarkable  and  fundamental  prob-  \ 
lems   of  the  Constitution   and  the  Union   with   which  ; 
it  was  his  fortune  to  deal.     All  these  were  the  peculiar  j 
circumstances  of  his  creation  and  must  be  remembered.  \ 

It  is,  perhaps,  true,  as  has  sometimes  been  said,  that 
he  would  be  an  impossibility  in  our  time,  and  might 

165 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

not  have  been  in  the  Senate  at  all.  If  he  had  lived  in 
our  time  he  would  of  course  have  been  moulded  by  our 
circumstances,  and  even  assuming  that  the  same  ability 
could  be  created  by  our  circumstances,  he  would  still 
necessarily  have  been  a  different  sort  of  person. 

Now  that  he  is  again  in  Congress,  he  finds  the  politi 
cal  condition  considerably  changed  since  the  War  of 
1812.  What  is  known  in  our  history  as  the  "  era  of 
good  feeling  "  had  prevailed  for  some  time  under  the 
administration  of  President  Monroe.  The  Federal 
party  was  dead.  President  Monroe  was  re-elected  in 
1820  by  an  electoral  vote  that  was  almost  unanimous. 
One  elector  voted  against  him  so  that  he  should  not 
have  the  honor  which  had  been  given  only  to  Wash 
ington. 

Thousands  of  former  Federalists  were  now  Demo 
crats  or  Republicans,  as  they  were  often  called.  The 
principal  political  differences  were  sectional,  between  the 
North  and  the  South,  or  between  the  West  and  the 
Northeast,  or  between  shades  of  opinion  among  the 
Democrats.  But  of  course  many  of  the  good  old  con 
servatives  in  Boston  who  voted  for  Webster  and  elected 
him  by  such  a  large  majority  regarded  themselves  as 
still  Federalists;  and  their  opponents  called  them  Fed 
eralists,  although  the  Federalist  party  had  no  organized 
existence. 

Congress  was  thoroughly  Democratic;  and  we  can 
understand  how  little  ordinary  partisanship  there  was 
when  we  find  that  as  soon  as  Webster  took  his  seat, 
Henry  Clay,  the  Speaker,  without  consultation  or  hesi 
tation,  placed  him  at  the  head  of  the  judiciary  commit 
tee,  an  important  position,  which  it  had  not  been  usual 
to  give  in  such  an  off-hand  manner  to  the  opposite  party, 
even  when  the  person  concerned  was  so  eminently  fitted 
for  the  post  as  Webster.  But  Clay,  it  is  said,  was  bid 
ding  for  Federalist  votes. 

Since  Webster's  previous  service  only  one  great 
question  had  come  up  in  Congress  and  been  settled, 
so  far  as  it  could  be  settled.  Negro  slaveryjiad-disap- 

166 


THE  MISSOURI  COMPROMISE 

peared  in  the  North;  but  in  the  South  it  was  becoming 
more  important  than  ever  for  three  reasons.  The  in 
vention  of  the  cotton  gin  enabled  a  slave  to  clean  the 
seeds  from  a  thousand  pounds  of  cotton  in  a  day  in 
stead  of  from  only  six  under  the  old  process ;  the  inven 
tion  of  spinning  machinery  in  England  enabled  cotton 
to  be  manufactured  into  fabrics  more  easily  than  ever 
before,  and  created  a  demand  for  it ;  and  the  vast  regions 
of  Alabama,  Mississippi,  Louisiana,  Arkansas,  and  Mis 
souri  were  being  settled,  were  favorable  by  climate  and 
soil  to  cotton  and  slavery,  and  offered  a  prospect  of 
great  wealth  to  the  southern  people  and  slave  owners. 

Louisiana,  Alabama,  and  Mississippi  had  been  ad 
mitted  as  States  in  recent  years  with  slavery  recognized 
in  each,  and  that,  of  course,  increased  the  southern  and 
slave-holding  vote  in  Congress.  As  an  offset  to  this, 
and  to  preserve  the  balance  of  power,  according  to  the 
custom  of  the  time,  Indiana,  Illinois,  and  Maine  had  been 
admitted  as  States  to  strengthen  the  northern  vote  and 
influence.  But  when  Missouri  in  1820  applied  for  ad 
mission  as  a  slave  State,  the  North  and  the  South  for  the 
first  time  found  themselves  in  a  serious  altercation. 
Missouri,  the  North  said,  was  beyond  the  Mississippi 
River,  and  it  had  never  been  intended,  when  the  Consti 
tution  was  adopted,  that  slavery  should  spread  beyond 
the  Mississippi.  The  North,  becoming  every  year  more 
convinced  of  the  evil  of  slavery  and  more  intolerant  of 
it,  was  in  truth  alarmed  at  this  threatened  spread  of  it. 
The  South  were  equally  alarmed  at  the  threat  to  stop 
the  advance  of  their  enterprise  and  wealth,  and  an 
nounced  the  doctrine  that  the  Constitution  left  slavery 
to  the  decision  of  the  individual  States,  and  that  if 
Missouri  chose  to  be  a  slave  State  neither  Congress 
nor  the  North  had  any  right  to  interfere. 

£  The  dispute  was  settled,  principally,  by  Henry  Clay,  \ 
who  took  a  leading  part  in  arranging  what  we  know 
as  the  Missouri  Compromise,  the  first  of  his  famous 
efforts  of  this  kind.     Missouri  was  admitted  as  a  slave 
State,  but  slavery  was  to  be  prohibited  in  all  the  rest 

167 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

of  the  Louisiana  purchase  north  of  latitude  36°  30', 
which  was  the  southern  boundary  of  Missouri.  Web 
ster  as  a  citizen  of  Boston  appears  to  have  been  opposed 
to  the  Missouri  Compromise.  He  was  one  of  a~CDirr- 
mittee  to  report  resolutions  against  the  extension  of 
slavery  into  Missouri  or  into  any  territory  beyond  the 
Mississippi,  and  he  made  a  speech  to  the  same  effect. 
The  spread  of  slavery  must,  he  said,  be  stopped  or  it 
"  would  roll  on  desolating  the  vast  expanse  of  continent 
to  the  Pacific  Ocean."  This  speech  the  abolitionists 
took  great  pains  to  quote  against  him  after  the  year 


The  North  undoubtedly  gained  by  the  Missouri 
Compromise  ;  but  the  weakness  of  what  it  gained  was 
that  the  prohibition  of  slavery  extended  only  to  the 
Louisiana  purchase  and  did  not  reach  the  after-acquired 
territory  of  Texas,  California,  Arizona,  New  Mexico, 
Colorado,  Nevada,  and  Utah;  and,  moreover,  the  pro 
hibition  was  contained  in  a  mere  act  of  Congress  which 
could  be  repealed  by  any  subsequent  Congress.  Web 
ster  in  later  years  became  seriously  involved  in  all  these 
consequences.  But  for  the  present  the  Missouri  Com 
promise  put  the  whole  slavery  trouble  at  rest  for  over 
twenty-five  years,  and,  as  some  think,  gave  Clay  and 
others  too  much  confidence  in  compromises. 

There  was  very  little  for  Webster  to  do  in  Congress 
at  this  time  or  for  the  next  seven  years  ;  nothing  calcu 
lated  to  bring  out  his  best  abilities  ;  and  if  his  service 
in  Congress  had  not  extended  to  the  great  questions  that 
jlay  beyond  those  seven  years,  it  would  hardly  be  neces- 
|sary  to  write  biographies  of  him. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  he  became  intimate  with 
William  Plumer,  a  Congressman  of  cultivation  and 
attainments  from  New  Hampshire;  and  Plumer  gives 
an  interesting  account  of  a  moonlight  conversation  with 
him. 

1  Theodore  Parker's  "  Sermon  on  Death  of  Webster,"  p.  36. 
168 


GREEK  INDEPENDENCE 

"  We  were  walking  together  one  broad  moonlight  evening, 
in  the  grounds  around  the  Capitol  at  Washington,  when  he 
broke  out  into  the  most  passionate  aspirations  after  glory. 
Without  it  life  was,  he  said,  not  worth  possessing.  The  petty 
struggles  of  the  day  were  without  interest  to  him,  except  as 
they  might  furnish  the  opportunity  of  saying  or  doing  some 
thing  which  would  be  remembered  in  after  time.  Inquiring 
my  age,  and  finding  that  I  was  some  seven  years  his  junior, 
he  said,  '  Oh !  that  I  had  those  seven  years,  that  you  have 
yet  to  come  to  reach  my  present  age.'  '  I  would  gladly  give 
them  to  you/  said  I,  '  if  you  would  give  me  what  you  have 
done  in  your  last  seven.'  '  Nothing,  nothing,'  he  exclaimed. 
'  I  have  done  absolutely  nothing.  At  thirty,  Alexander  had 
conquered  the  world ;  and  I  am  forty.'  '  And  at  forty/  said  I, 
'  Csesar  had  done  nothing.'  '  Ay/  said  he,  '  that  is  better ; 
there  is  something  in  that.  Caesar  at  forty  had  done  nothing: 
we  may  say  then  at  forty  one  may  still  hope  to  do  great 
things.'  Observing  that  I  smiled  at  his  enthusiasm,  he  smiled 
too ;  and  said,  '  You  laugh  at  me,  Plumer !  Your  quiet  way 
of  looking  at  things  may  be  the  best,  after  all ;  but  I  have 
sometimes  such  glorious  dreams!  And  sometimes,  too,  I  half 
believe  that  they  will  one  day  wake  into  glorious  realities.' 
We  walked  on,  in  silence,  for  some  time  together,  he  musing 
on  schemes  of  ambition  and  labor  of  immortality;  I,  on  the 
duties  of  a  humbler  but  not  unhappy  life."  (Webster,  Works, 
National  Edition,  vol.  xvii,  p.  560.) 

Soon  after  his  entering  Congress  at  this  time,  he 
found  a  subject  that  raised  some  of  the  never-ending 
problems  of  human  liberty  well  suited  to  lawyer-like 
eloquence.  The  Greeks  were  in  the  midst  of  their  war 
for  independence  against  the  Turks.  They  were  a 
small  people  against  a  powerful  military  and  despotic 
oppressor ;  the  issue  was  doubtful ;  the  heroism  of  their 
struggle,  their  wonderful  past,  all  that  they  had  done 
for  human  liberty  in  the  ancient  world,  for  art,  for 
literature,  for  the  revival  of  learning  and  freedom  in 
the  Reformation,  appealed  to  a  certain  class  of  minds 
who  were  ready  to  give  them  sympathy  and  assistance 
whether  they  lost  or  won.  But  to  other  minds  it  seemed 
bad  policy  to  favor  an  unimportant  people  who  might 
be  unsuccessful,  who,  indeed,  probably  would  be  unsuc 
cessful.  To  favor  such  a  people  might  involve  America 

169 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

in  war  or  in  the  complicated  diplomacy  of  the  European 
nations,  and  was  at  best  a  mere  literary  sentiment,  a 
fanciful,  impractical  sympathy  that  should  be  left  to 
individual  indulgence  and  not  risked  by  serious  states 
men  in  the  halls  of  Congress. 

Nevertheless,  President  Monroe  in  his  message 
had  favored  the  Greeks,  had  expressed  the  belief  that 
they  would  gain  their  independence,  and  wished  them 
success.  So  Webster  introduced  a  simple  resolution 
urging  that  an  agent  or  commissioner  be  sent  to  Greece 
whenever  the  President  deemed  it  expedient ;  and  on  this 
resolution  he  made  a  speech,  published  in  his  works,  and 
greatly  admired  in  its  day.  It  was  reprinted  wherever 
the  English  language  was  spoken,  translated  into  Greek, 
Spanish,  and,  indeed,  all  the  languages  of  Europe  and 
circulated  in  South  America.  The  message  of  the 
President  and  speeches  by  Webster  and  Clay  were  the 
first  conspicuous  and  able  official  expression  of  sympa 
thy  from,  any  nation,  and  there  is  every  reason  to  believe 
that  Webster's  words  must  have  contributed  to  the 
creation  throughout  the  civilized  world  of  that  favorable 
feeling  towards  Greece  which  had  not  a  little  to  do  with 
her  ultimate  success. 

The  people  who  crowded  to  hear  him  on  the  day  he 
spoke  were,  it  is  said,  rather  in  expectation  of  some  very 
violent  oratory  on  liberty  or  a  move  on  the  political 
chessboard.  But  instead  of  what  might  be  called  a 
regulation  popular  outburst,  they  listened  to  a  learned 
and  subdued,  but  well  sustained,  attack  on  the  principles 
of  the  "  Holy  Alliance,"  which,  since  the  fall  of  Napo 
leon,  had  undertaken  to  so  regulate  the  affairs  of  Eu 
rope  that  there  should  be  no  more  unruly  outburst  of 
Republicanism  or  overthrows  of  monarchical  rule. 
Webster  analyzed  the  congresses,  the  leagues,  and  the 
understandings  of  the  nations  of  the  Alliance — Austria, 
Prussia,  and  Russia — and  ridiculed  their  foundation 
principle  that  the  nations  of  Europe  have  a  right  to 
interfere  and  suppress  a  people  who  attempt  to  throw 

170 


GREEK  INDEPENDENCE 

off  the  government  that  is  over  them.  Thus  he  made 
his  speech  much  wider  than  the  cause  of  the  Greeks; 
and,  in  fact,  it  was  an  eloquent  essay  on  the  political 
situation  in  Europe. 

Fifteen  years  before  the  delivery  of  this  speech, 
Napoleon  and  France  had  been  contending  for  the  very 
doctrine  which  Webster  now  advocated,  namely,  that  it 
was  contrary  to  public  international  law  and  civilized 
policy  for  any  nation,  or  set  of  nations,  to  deny  to  an 
other  nation  its  right  to  govern  itself  and  adopt  repub 
licanism  or  monarchy  as  it  pleased.  For  twenty  years 
France  had  contended  that  if  her  people  chose  to  abolish 
their  old  monarchy  and  have  in  its  place  semi-republi 
canism,  a  consulate,  an  emperor,  or,  if  you  please,  Na- 
poleonism,  it  was  an  affair  entirely  of  the  French  people, 
a  sacred  right  in  which  other  nations  must  not  inter 
fere.  The  other  nations  had  denied  this  right,  had 
declared  the  old  monarchy  of  France  the  only  sacred 
right,  the  only  real  legitimacy;  and  they  fought  for 
twenty  years,  and  slaughtered  millions  of  men  until 
they  had  destroyed  Napoleon's  power  and  restored  the 
old  French  monarchy. 

Nothing  shows  more  clearly  that  the  terrible  stress 
of  the  old  Napoleonic  situation  was  passing  away  and 
that  natural  liberals  were  gradually  returning  to  liberal 
ideas  than  this  speech  of  Webster,  in  which  he  formally 
comes  over  to  what  had  been  part  of  the  French  and 
Napoleonic  cause.  Ten  or  fifteen  years  before  the 
struggle  of  France  and  Napoleon  to  defend  themselves 
had  been  so  terrific,  their  conquests  had  been  so  ex 
tended,  they  had  involved  and  injured  the  interests  of 
so  many  other  nations,  they  had  gone  to  such  extremes 
and  threatened  such  an  unbalancing  of  old  conditions, 
that  many  natural  liberals  had  for  the  time  become  tories 
and  hardly  dared  be  anything  else. 

Perhaps  the  part  of  his  Greek  speech  best  to  quote 
as  a  specimen  of  Webster's  style  and  manner  at  this  time 
is  one  of  the  opening  passages  : 

171 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

"  We  must,  indeed,  fly  beyond  the  civilized  world ;  we  must 
pass  the  dominion  of  law  and  the  boundaries  of  knowledge ; 
we  must  more  especially  withdraw  ourselves  from  this  place, 
and  the  scenes  and  objects  which  here  surround  us, — if  we 
would  separate  ourselves  entirely  from  the  influence  of  all 
those  memorials  of  herself  which  ancient  Greece  has  trans 
mitted  for  the  admiration  and  the  benefit  of  mankind.  This 
free  form  of  government,  this  popular  assembly,  the  common 
council  held  for  the  common  good — where  have  we  contem 
plated  its  earliest  models?  This  practice  of  free  debate  and 
public  discussion,  the  contest  of  mind  with  mind,  and  that 
popular  eloquence  which,  if  it  were  here,  on  a  subject  like  this, 
would  move  the  stones  of  the  Capitol, — whose  was  the  lan 
guage  in  which  all  these  were  first  exhibited?  Even  the  edifice 
in  which  we  assemble,  these  proportioned  columns,  this  orna 
mented  architecture,  all  remind  us  that  Greece  has  existed, 
and  that  we  like  the  rest  of  mankind  are  greatly  her  debtors." 

Webster  always  liked  his  Greek  speech,  and  some  six 
or  seven  years  afterwards  wrote  of  it,  "  I  think  I  am 
more  fond  of  this  child  than  any  of  the  family."  It 
was  probably  his  love  of  culture  and  classical  scholar 
ship  that  made  him  fond  of  it.  His  detailed  exposure 
of  the  devious  ways  of  the  Holy  Alliance  seems  now  a 
trifle  tiresome,  because  the  occasion  for  it  has  long  since 
passed  away.  But  his  descriptions  of  the  spirit  of  the 
old  Greeks,  the  heroes  of  Thermopylae  rising  again  after 
two  thousand  years  to  expel  the  Turk  and  the  Tartar 
with  the  same  desperate  valor  with  which  they  had  ex 
pelled  the  barbaric  Persian,  will  probably  remain  fresh 
for  us  for  many  years  to  come. 

In  his  speech  in  support  of  Webster's  resolution  on 
Greek  independence  Henry  Clay,  in  a  somewhat  patron 
izing  manner,  had  said  that  the  measure  was  not  to  be 
condemned  because  Webster  was  or  had  been  a  Federal 
ist  ;  it  was  no  doubt  bad  enough  to  be  a  Federalist ;  but 
the  author  of  the  resolution  was  nevertheless  a  worthy 
man.  He  had  previously  told  Webster  what  he  intended 
to  say;  that  he  was  willing  to  do  what  he  could  to 
remove  the  prejudice  against  Federalists,  especially  in 
this  case.  Webster,  in  relating  this  interview,  said 
that  he  was  inclined  to  doubt  whether  Clay's  motive 

172 


TARIFF  OF   1824 

was  altogether  friendly;  by  which  he  seems  to  have 
meant  that  Clay  may  have  intended  to  injure  Webster 
politically  by  calling  attention  to  his  Federalism  and 
dwelling  upon  it.  The  incident  is  important  as  showing 
not  only  how  seriously  discredited  Federalism  was, 
but  how  serious  a  handicap  to  Webster  was  his  former 
indulgence  in  it.  He  never  could  shake  it  off;  and  in 
after  years  it  prevented  his  nomination  for  the  Presi 
dency.2 

The  Greek  speech  was  in  January,  1824;  and  soon 
afterward  that  most  troublesome  of  all  American  ques-  \ 
tions,  a  tariff  bill,  came  before  the  House.  A  tariff 
bill  had,  as  we  have  seen,  been  passed,  under  the  leader 
ship  of  Calhoun,  in  1816,  and  had  given  a  certain 
amount  of  protection  to  domestic  industries,  especially 
cotton  and  wool  manufacturing.  Those  industries  had 
started  up  during  the  War  of  1812  when  Orders  in 
Council,  French  Decrees,  and  American  embargoes  had 
driven  so  many  of  our  people  and  so  much  of  our  capital 
out  of  ocean  commerce  and  ship-owning.  But  the  pro 
tection  of  the  Tariff  Act  of  1816  seemed  to  be  hardly 
enough.  Our  new  industries  found  it  hard  to  compete 
with  the  old  establishments  of  Europe,  and  the  new  bill 
of  1824,  promoted  chiefly  by  Henry  Clay,  was  much 
more  protective. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  Clay  made  his  tariff  speech ; 
the  most  elaborate  of  his  life,  in  which,  by  frequently 
calling  the  new  tariff  the  American  system,  he  gave 
that  name  to  protection,  and  he  himself  became  known 
as  the  Father  of  Protection  to  American  Industries. 
He  had  spoken  before  on  the  subject,  notably  on  the 
bill  of  1820,  which  failed  to  pass ;  and  he  was  a  master 
of  the  whole  question.  As  his  speech  has  been  called 
the  foundation  of  the  system,  and,  though  often  referred 
to,  is  little  known,  it  may  be  well  to  summarize  its  essen 
tial  principles. 

2  Webster,  Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xvii,  p.  551. 
173 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

1.  The  general  distress  in  every  part  of  the  union;  dimin 
ished    exports,    unthreshed    crops,    bankruptcies,    and    extreme 
scarcity  of  money,  ha^  been  caused  by  the  downfall  of  our  old 
commerce  and  navigation,  which  had  been  in  a  measure  arti 
ficial  and  accidental,  built  up  on  the  accident  of  nearly  thirty 
years  of  war  in  Europe,  which  prevented  the  European  nations 
from    attending    to    their    own    commercial    interests.     Europe 
is  now  tranquil,  competing  naturally  with  us,  and  we  are  the 
losers. 

2.  The  object  of  the  new  tariff  bill  is,  therefore,  to  create 
a  home   market   for  our  people  by  cutting  off  the   import  of 
foreign   manufactured   goods,   just   as    Great   Britain   has   pro 
hibited  the  importation  of  supplies  which  her  own  people  can 
produce.     Our  exportation  of  Indian  corn,  pork,  etc.,  has  fallen 
off   in    recent    years    by    millions    of   bushels    and    millions    of 
barrels. 

3.  Numerous  and  variegated  industries  increase  a  nation's 
wealth.     A   nation   restricted  to  one   or   a   few   industries  will 
always    remain    comparatively   poor.     It   has    always    been   the 
policy  of  England,  and  the  other  European  nations,  to  confine 
us,  if  possible,  to  the  mere  production  of  raw  materials  so  that 
we  would  buy  manufactured  articles  from  Europe. 

4.  Great  Britain,  by  a  long  continued  system  of  protection, 
attained  to  that  vast  wealth  which  enabled  her  to  carry  through 
the  Napoleonic  wars  by  subsidizing  as  allies  Austria,  Prussia, 
and  Russia.     "  Self-poised,  resting  upon  her  own  internal  re 
sources,    possessing   a   home   market,   carefully   cherished   and 
guarded,  she  is  ever  prepared  for  any  emergency." 

5.  The    Southern    States    are    not   by   their    circumstances 
necessarily  excluded  from  manufacturing.     They  are  disquali 
fied  only  from  certain  branches  of  it. 

6.  A  protective  tariff  will  not  diminish  our  exports,  our 
navigation  or  our  foreign  commerce;   for  whatever  augments 
the  wealth  of  a  nation  must  increase  its  capacity  to  make  the 
exchanges  of  commerce.     We  must  protect  ourselves  as  other 
nations    have    done    against    the    overwhelming    influence    of 
foreign  competition. 

7.  A    protective    tariff    will    not   necessarily    diminish    the 
public  revenue,  by  too  great  restriction  of  importation.    That 
is  a  question   for  experiment  and  adjustment.    "Such  is  the 
elastic  and  accumulating  nature  of  our  public  resources,  from 
the    silent    augmentation    of    our    population,    that    if,    in    any 
given  state  of  the  public  revenue,  we  throw  ourselves  upon  a 
couch  and  go  to  sleep,  we  may,  after  a  short  time,  awake  with 
an    ability    abundantly    increased    to    redeem    any    reasonable 
amount   of   public    debt   with   which   we    may   happen   to   be 
burdened." 

174 


TARIFF  OF   1824 

8.  Free  trade  and  the  so-called  natural  growth  of  indus 
tries  would  afford,  perhaps,  an  admirable  system  if  all  nations 
would    agree   to    it.     But   so    long  as    individual   nations    seize 
their  opportunities  to  protect  their  own  industries  and  peoples, 
and  try  to  injure  or  absorb  the  trade  of  other  nations,  free 
trade  must  be  either  adopted  or  rejected  as  suits  the  circum 
stances    of    each    nation.     England   has    long   lived    under   the 
most    elaborate    and    complete    system    of   protection.     Let    us 
imitate  her  example,  let  our  industries  be  protected  as  England's 
are,  "  and  we  shall  then  be  ready,  as  England  now  is  said  to  be, 
to  put  aside  protection,  and  enter  upon  the  freest  exchanges." 

9.  Manufacturing  may  tend  to  accumulation  of  capital  in  a 
few  hands ;   but  so  has  planting  in  our  Southern  States ;  and 
our  past  success  in  ship-owning  and  commerce  created  nabobs 
of  the  North. 

10.  A  protective  tariff  is  constitutional  under  that  clause 
of  the   Constitution   which  gives   Congress  power  to   regulate 
commerce  with  foreign  nations. 

11.  Varied    domestic    industries    are    a    vast    advantage    in 
war,  enabling  a  nation  to   live  upon  itself.     We  learned   the 
need  of  them  in  1812. 

12.  One  of  the  strongest  arguments  for  protection  is  the 
wonderful   success  of  Napoleon  in  building  up  by  its   means 
the   industry,   the   finances   and   the   power   of    France,    which 
enabled   her   to   contend   for   nearly  twenty  years   against  the 
combined  attacks  of  all  the  other  nations  of  Europe. 

Clay  was  an  admirer  of  Napoleon,  quoted  many  of 
his  keen,  trenchant  opinions,  and  enlarged  with  statistics 
and  full  details  on  all  the  points  that  have  been  just 
enumerated.  England  had  not  then  changed  to  free 
trade,  although  the  first  symptoms  of  the  coming  change 
were  in  evidence.  The  history  of  the  world  for  the  past 
two  hundred  years  undoubtedly  showed  a  strong  con 
sensus  of  opinion  among  all  European  nations  in  favor 
of  protection. 

Webster  replied  to  Clay  in  a  notable  speech,  often 
quoted  against  him  in  later  years,  when,  like  most  people 
in  New  England,  he  became  a  protectionist.  In  1824, 
however,  he  was  in  the  position  of  representing  a 
community  which  was  both  commercial  and  manufactur 
ing;  in  some  respects  decidedly  opposed  to  a  protective 
tariff,  in  other  respects  in  its  favor.  As  representing 
ship-owners  and  merchants,  his  argument  against  the 

175 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

tariff  was  a  sound  and  valid  one,  because  the  tariff 
taxed  heavily  the  materials  out  of  which  ships  were 
built ;  and  to  this  day  there  are  comparatively  few  who 
will  deny  that  protection  has  depressed  our  merchant 
marine.  Webster  pleaded  eloquently  for  it;  and  cited 
the  well-known  policy  of  the  English  nation  which, 
before  all  things,  encourages  its  ships  on  the  ground 
that  the  first  and  best  of  all  manufactures  is  the  manu 
facture  of  ships. 

He  was  willing  to  have  moderate  protection,  but  it 
must  not  be  carried  to  an  extreme.  The  act  of  1816 
was  good  enough ;  and  he  made  a  protest,  which  is 
again  raised  in  our  own  time  by  President  Taft,  against 
passing  at  one  time  and  in  one  bill  a  complicated  mass 
of  tariff  provisions  which  convulse  the  country  and 
which  hardly  any  one  person  can  entirely  approve  or 
disapprove.  It  would  be  better  to  alter  and  amend  the 
tariff  a  little  at  a  time  as  real  necessity  should  from  time 
to  time  prove  the  need  of  it.  There  were  some  things 
in  this  bill  of  1824  that  he  approved,  and  yet  on  the 
whole  he  would  be  compelled  to  vote  against  it. 

One  of  the  most  important  parts  of  his  speech  was 
the  denial  that  there  was  such  distress  in  the  country 
as  Clay  had  represented.  Webster  described  New  Eng 
land  as  quite  prosperous.  There  had  been  times,  it  is 
true,  when  there  had  been  greater  activity,  especially 
of  a  speculative  nature.  Profits  were  indeed  now  low 
in  certain  pursuits  of  life,  like  shipping,  "  which  it  is 
not  proposed  to  benefit  but  to  burden  by  this  bill."  But 
there  was  nothing  that  could  be  called  distress  or  suf 
fering.  The  means  of  subsistence  were  abundant, 
wages  were  high,  large  sums  were  being  expended  for 
improvements  for  roads,  bridges,  education  and  charity. 
The  only  places  where  there  was  anything  like  the  real 
distress  described  by  Clay  were  localities  where  the  issue 
of  paper  money  had  been  excessive. 

Descriptions  of  so-called  business  distress  are  noto 
riously  unreliable.  People  who  testify  on  the  subject 

176 


PORTRAIT   OF    WEBSTER    BY    STUART 
In  the  possession  of  G.  F.  Williams,  Esq. 


TARIFF  OF  1824 

mean  different  things  by  the  words  they  use.  They 
may  mean  by  distress,  not  making  as  much  money  as 
they  would  like  to  make,  or  as  much  as  they  once  made. 
Sometimes  it  is  the  speculative  class  alone  who  testify. 
The  advocates  of  protection  are  singularly  unreliable  in 
such  testimony.  The  degradation,  retrogression,  misery 
and  starvation  of  low  tariff  times  and  the  bounding 
prosperity  of  high  tariff  times  are  painted  in  very  vivid 
colors ;  but  their  advocates  would  have  great  difficulty 
in  proving  the  truth  of  either  extreme. 

Webster's  remedy  for  any  evils  that  existed  was  to 
go  cautiously,  make  sure  of  the  fitness  and  aptitude  of 
any  new  measures,  and  largely  let  things  alone,  espe 
cially  commerce  and  navigation. 

"  If  anything  should  strike  us  with  astonishment,  it  is 
that  the  navigation  of  the  United  States  should  sustain  itself. 
Without  any  government  protection  whatever,  it  goes  abroad 
to  challenge  competition  with  the  whole  world;  and,  in  spite 
of  all  obstacles,  it  has  yet  been  able  to  maintain  eight  hundred 
thousand  tons  of  shipping  in  the  employment  of  foreign  trade. 
How,  sir,  do  the  ship  owners  and  navigators  accomplish  this? 
How  is  it  that  they  are  able  to  meet,  and  in  some  measure 
overcome,  universal  competition?  It  is  not,  sir,  by  protection 
and  bounties,  but  by  unwearied  exertion,  by  extreme  economy, 
by  unshaken  perseverance,  by  that  manly  and  resolute  spirit 
which  relies  on  itself  to  protect  itself.  These  causes  alone 
enable  American  ships  still  to  keep  their  element,  and  show 
the  flag  of  their  country  in  distant  seas." 

He  protested  again  against  the  passage  of  such  a 
long-  and  complicated  bill  at  one  vote,  when  it  was 
by  no  means  clear  what  effect  many  of  its  provisions 
would  have.  He  was  in  favor  of  domestic  industry; 
so  was  everybody.  "But  agriculture,  commerce  and 
navigation  were  as  much  domestic  industry  as  manufac 
turing.  "  Why  should  we  place  ourselves  in  a  condition 
where  we  cannot  give  every  measure,  that  is  distinct 
and  separate  in  itself,  a  separate  and  distinct  considera 
tion  ? "  He  was  not  yet  broken  in  to  our  lumping 
method  of  tariff  legislation,  everything  hotchpotch  to- 
12  177 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

gether,  the  understood,  the  misunderstood,  and  the  not 
understood. 

The  greater  part  of  his  speech  has  been  usually  con 
sidered  an  out  and  out  free  trade  argument,  and  as 
such  has  been  greatly  admired.  It  was  of  this  speech 
that  Hayne  said,  in  1830,  "  Like  a  mighty  giant  he 
bore  away  upon  his  shoulders  the  pillars  of  the  temple 
of  error  and  delusion,  escaping  himself  unhurt,  and 
leaving  his  adversaries  overwhelmed  in  its  ruins." 

He  quoted  a  good  deal  from  English  public  men — 
Huskisson,  Lord  Lansdowne,  Lord  Ellenborough,  and 
Lord  Liverpool — who  were  starting  the  free  trade  move 
ment  which  fifteen  or  twenty  years  afterwards  appeared 
in  full  flower.  Webster  declared  that  England  was  on 
the  eve  of  adopting  free  trade,  that  her  greatness  and 
power  were  not  due  to  her  protective  system,  but  in 
spite  of  it;  and  that  this  was  the  opinion  of  her  public 
men.  Her  prohibitive  and  monopoly  system  was  still 
allowed  to  remain  because  it  had  existed  so  long  that 
great  injury  to  individuals  would  follow  the  taking 
of  it  off ;  and  this  would  be  our  experience  if  we  carried 
protection  to  an  extreme.  This  was  his  reason  some 
years  afterwards  for  voting  in  favor  of  the  tariff  bill 
of  1828,  which  gave  increased  protection  to  the 
woollen  industry.  That  industry,  he  argued,  having 
been  started  by  protection  in  1824  and  large  capital  in 
vested  in  it,  must  be  protected  by  further  increase  of 
duties  in  1828,  because  its  invested  capital  and  existence 
were  endangered  by  changed  conditions  in  European 
trade.  That  is  the  difficulty  with  a  protective  tariff. 
Once  started,  where  will  you  stop? 

Like  all  minute  and  exhaustive  arguments  on  the 
subject  Webster's  conclusion  was  that  a  nation  might  be 
very  prosperous  under  protection  and  also  very  pros 
perous  under  free  trade.  The  Englishmen  admitted 
this.  Free  trade,  the  unrestricted  exchange  of  commodi- 
ities  of  varying  climates  and  nations,  was  the  ideal; 
but  it  could  not  always  be  carried  out,  because  the 

178 


TARIFF  OF  1824 

nations  would  not  agree  to  let  it  alone.  One  would  see 
an  advantage  to  be  gained  over  a  rival  by  protection. 
Another  would  wish  to  pass  from  the  condition  of  a 
mere  producer  of  raw  material  to  the  more  distinguished 
position  of  varied  manufacturing  and  make  the  change 
by  the  quick  process  of  a  protective  tariff.  Free  trade 
would  be  the  best  if  you  could  have  it,  and  you  should 
keep  as  close  to  it  as  possible,  was  Webster's  doctrine. 

"  I  think  freedom  of  trade  to  be  the  general  principle  and 
restriction  the  exception.  And  it  is  for  any  State,  taking 
into  view  its  own  condition,  to  judge  of  the  propriety,  in  any 
case,  of  making  an  exception,  constantly  preferring,  as  I  think 
all  wise  governments  will,  not  to  depart  without  urgent  reasons 
from  the  general  rule." 

Perhaps  the  nations  at  the  time  of  our  colonial  period 
had  the  shrewdest  understanding  of  the  subject.  They 
were  pretty  much  all  protective ;  but  some  of  them  would 
at  the  same  time  allow  complete  free  trade  at  one  port 
in  one  of  their  colonies  so  as  to  reap  the  advantages  of 
both  policies. 

Much  trouble  and  confusion  usually  arises  from  the 
attempt  to  state  one  side  or  the  other  as  an  absolute 
truth,  an  unchangeable  principle,  something  that  can  be 
settled  by  science  or  mathematics.  But  the  whole  mat 
ter,  like  many  others  in  so-called  political  economy, 
is  and  always  has  been  a  mere  question  of  policy,  a 
mere  question  of  local  conditions,  or,  if  you  please,  pure 
opportunism ;  and  it  will  never  be  anything  else. 

.For  political  economy  as  a  pretended  exact  science 
and  as  taught  in  professional  books  Webster  always 
had  a  supreme  contempt;  and  of  this  his  opponents 
complained.  He  was  not,  they  said,  "  a  scientific  legis 
lator  ; "  and  he  certainly  never  professed  to  be. 

'  Though  I  like  the  investigation  of  particular  questions/ 
he  said,  '  I  give  up  what  is  called  "  the  science  of  political 
economy."  There  is  no  such  science.  There  are  no  rules  on 
these  subjects  so  fixed  and  invariable  as  that  their  aggregate 

179 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

constitutes  a  science.  I  believe  I  have  recently  run  over 
twenty  volumes,  from  Adam  Smith  to  Professor  Dew  of 
Virginia,  and  from  the  whole,  if  I  were  to  pick  out  with  one 
hand  all  the  mere  truisms,  and  with  the  other  all  the  doubt 
ful  propositions,  little  would  be  left.'  "  (Correspondence,  vol.  i, 
p.  501.) 

Having  laid  down  the  true  principle  of  the  relations 
between  protection  and  free  trade,  the  remainder  of 
Webster's  efforts  was  directed  to  showing  that  the  tariff 
of  1816  had  gone  far  enough  in  the  direction  of  protec 
tion,  and  that  most  of  this  hill  of  1824  was  unnecessary 
or  injurious.  The  shipping  interest  was  already  taxed. 
This  bill  would  increase  the  tax  nearly  fifty  per  cent. 
The  disasters  in  the  iron  business  were  mentioned  as 
reasons  for  protecting  the  iron  industry ;  but  the  disas 
ters  of  commerce  were  narrated  to  show  that  it  should 
be  abandoned  and  its  capital  turned  to  other  objects. 
In  fact  the  American  people  had  made  up  their  minds 
that  our  merchant  marine  should  be  sacrificed ;  and  yet, 
strange  to  say,  it  was  strong  enough  to  survive  all  taxes 
and  restrictions  and  flourish  until  the  time  of  the  Civil 
War. 

The  increased  duty  on  glass  was  about  the  only  one 
he  favored.  But  we  cannot  here  follow  out  his  details, 
instructive  though  they  would  be.  There  are  few  text 
books  or  treatises  from  which  so  much  enlightening  in 
formation  can  be  obtained,  not  only  on  trade  but  on 
national  currency  and  finance,  as  in  the  speeches  of 
Daniel  Webster  and  Henry  Clay. 

The  two  men  were  curiously  alike,  usually  in  accord 
in  their  opinions,  evenly  matched  in  reasoning  power  on 
most  subjects,  but  of  course  on  great  questions  of  con 
stitutional  law  and  in  permanence  of  literary  merit  and 
wealth  of  illustration  Webster  was  by  far  the  superior. 
Plumer,  who  often  listened  to  them,  said  that  "  Web 
ster  has  greater  power  of  reasoning  and  less  native 
eloquence  than  the  great  western  orator.  Webster  acts 
directly  on  the  understanding;  Clay  on  the  under- 

180 


TARIFF  OF  1824 

standing  through  the  passions."  Yet  Clay's  rousing 
of  the  passions  was  more  by  his  manner  than  his 
words.  He  had  less  imagination  than  Webster;  and, 
of  course,  as  Plumer  also  says,  less  acquired  knowl 
edge,  less  taste,  and  fewer  attainments  in  law  and 
in  political  science.  Clay,  as  Webster  once  said  of 
him,  never  browsed  in  a  library.  His  leisure  was  more 
given  to  social  excitement,  and  his  great  love  of  con 
versation  and  pleasing.  Webster,  on  the  other  hand, 
was  a  great  browser.  He  could  forget  law  and  politics, 
and  even  his  pet  oxen  and  shotguns,  and  spend  a  whole 
day  or  days  in  taking  down  volume  after  volume,  seiz 
ing  tufts  and  fragments  of  the  choice  thoughts  of  the 
world,  to  store  away  and  grind  into  the  texture  of  his 
mind.  It  is  a  wholesome  process  that  has  nourished 
many  a  strong  intellect.3 

Nevertheless,  Clay's  speedies  are  fine  products  of 
intellect ;  historically  invaluable ;  full  of  the  vivacity  and 
geniality  of  the  popular  Harry  of  the  West.  His 
famous  arraignment  of  General  Jackson  is  a  master 
piece  of  sarcasm  and  contempt ;  and  he  often  made  up 
for  limited  range  and  a  less  richly  stored  mind  by  con 
ciseness  and  extreme  closeness  to  the  point.  In  fact,  if 
we  were  making  Webster  over  again,  and  prepared  to 
interfere  with  the  decrees  of  Providence,  it  might  possi- 
ftly  be  well  to  put  in  a  drop  or  two  of  conciseness.  But 
then  Webster  would  say,  as  he  actually  did,  that  the 
strength  of  his  method  lay  in  the  abundance  of  his 
illustrations,  in  repeating  a  thought  in  such  various 
and  enticing  forms  that  the  hearer  could  not  escape 
from  it. 

-  So  he  voted  against  Clay's  tariff  bill  of  1824,  which 
was  passed,  but  with  modifications  in  the  Senate  which 
met  some  of  his  objections;  and  these  modifications 
Plumer  thinks  were  largely  due  to  Webster's  speech. 

"Lanman,    Private    Life    of    Webster,    p.    130;    Harvey's 
Reminiscences. 

181 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

"  During  the  greater  part  of  his  tariff  speech  the  friends 
of  the  bill  seemed  to  feel  as  if  the  whole  fabric  on  which  they 
had  long  labored  was  tumbling  in  ruins  about  their  heads; 
others  had  spoken  well  and  ingeniously  on  the  subject;  some 
with  much  knowledge  of  fact,  others  with  a  great  display  of 
philosophical  principles.  Still  the  system  remained  unimpaired, 
or  but  slightly  affected;  till  Webster,  in  the  pride  of  conscious 
power,  came  into  the  field,  beating  down  as  with  a  giant's  club 
the  whole  array  of  his  opponents'  force.  They  never  fully 
recovered  from  this  deadly  assault.  They  indeed  carried  the 
bill  through  the  House,  though  not  without  material  altera 
tions  even  then;  but  they  wanted  strength,  when  it  came  back 
from  the  Senate,  to  reject  any  of  the  many  amendments  by 
which  that  body  had  materially  changed  its  most  important 
provisions."  (Webster,  Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xvi, 
P-  550.) 

Webster  had  had  a  modern  method  of  collecting 
information  for  his  speech.  He  had  obtained  fifty 
copies  of  the  bill  and  sent  them  to  merchants,  manufac 
turers,  farmers,  and  students  requesting  their  opinions. 
In  this  way  he  obtained  ,a  great  mass  of  information 
from  the  ablest  men.  "  He  offered  me  this  bundle  of 
papers,"  says  Plumer,  "  out  of  which  half  a  dozen  good 
speeches  might,  he  said,  be  made."  In  the  same  way 
no  doubt  Webster  afterwards  studied  those  problems  of 
finance,  for  the  treatment  of  which  he  became  so  famous. 
He  often  applied  to  Judge  Story  for  reasoning,  facts  and 
material  in  both  law  and  politics;  and  no  doubt  his 
remarkable  speeches  on  finance  and  the  functions  of 
money  contain  the  quintessence  of  the  best  thought  of 
the  best  bankers  of  the  country. 

While  in  the  midst  of  his  tariff  speech  a  note  was 
handed  to  him  saying  that  the  case  of  Gibbons  vs.  Ogden 
would  be  called  for  argument  the  next  day  iiTHie^a- 
preme  Court.  He  was  astonished,  for  he  had  supposed 
that  he  had  nearly  two  weeks  to  prepare  himself  for 
that  famous  case.  He  closed  his  tariff  speech  as  soon 
as  he  could,  and  hurried  to  his  house.  He  had  been  up 
before  daylight  that  morning  to  prepare  himself  for  the 

182 


GIBBONS  VS.    OGDEN 

tariff  debate,  and  now  instead  of  dining,  he  took  a  dose 
of  medicine  and  went  to  bed. 

"At  ten  P.M.  he  awoke,  called  for  a  bowl  of  tea,  and 
without  other  refreshment  went  immediately  to  work.  To  use 
his  own  phrase,  '  the  tapes  had  not  been  off  his  papers  for  more 
than  a  year.'  He  worked  all  night,  and,  as  he  has  told  me  more 
than  once,  he  thought  he  never  on  any  occasion  had  so  com 
pletely  the  free  use  of  his  faculties.  He  hardly  felt  that  he 
had  bodily  organs,  so  entirely  had  the  fasting  and  the  medicine 
done  their  work.  At  nine  A.M.,  after  eleven  hours  of  continu 
ous  intellectual  effort,  his  brief  was  completed.  He  sent  for 
the  barber  and  was  shaved;  he  took  a  very  light  breakfast 
of  tea  and  crackers;  he  looked  over  his  papers  to  see  that 
they  were  all  in  order,  and  tied  them  up — he  read  the  morning 
journals  to  amuse  and  change  his  thoughts,  and  then  he  went 
into  court  and  made  that  argument,  which,  as  Judge  Wayne 
said  about  twenty  years  afterward,  '  released  every  creek  and 
river,  every  lake  and  harbor  in  our  country  from  the  inter-  ; 
ference  of  monopolies.'  "  (Ticknor's  Reminiscences  in  Curtis's 
Life  of  Webster,  vol.  i,  p.  217.) 

For  thirty-six  hours  he  had  been  nearly  all  the  time 
in  high  excitement,  had  performed  intellectual  labor  far 
beyond  the  powers  of  most  men,  and  had  had  scarcely 
half  a  meal.  It  was  a  magnificent  instance  of  living 
on  reserve  force.  The  advocates  of  an  empty  stomach 
for  intellectual  labor  no  doubt  consider  it  a  valuable 
instance  for  their  theory ;  but  they  would  have  to  be 
careful  how  they  apply  it  to  ordinary  mortals.  Every 
man  of  high  achievement,  or,  indeed,  of  ordinary 
achievement,  has  usually  worked  out  a  method  of  put 
ting  himself  in  condition  for  his  daily  work  or  for  some 
extraordinary  effort.  With  some  it  is  beefsteaks,  with 
others  fasting;  with  some  exercise,  with  others  none. 
No  general  rule  can  be  drawn ;  and  even  physicians  con 
fess  their  inability  to  go  beyond  particular  instances. 

.This  case  of  Gibbons  vs.  Ogden,  which  Webster 
was  so  suddenly  called  to,  was  one  of  those  momentous 
litigations  of  that  time  which  reached-40-the  roots  of  the 
Constitution  and  have  made  the  government  of  the 

183 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

United  States  what  it  now  is.  It  was  another  discipline 
and  training  for  him  in  constitutional  interpretation; 
another  profound  experience  like  the  Dartmouth  College 
case  ;  and  it  was  these  opportunities  that  were  building 
him  up  into  what  is  now  seen  to  have  been  the  mission 
of  his  life.  Other  lawyers  were  in  these  cases  ;  had 
the  same  opportunities;  but  they  had  not  the  natural 
reasoning  power  and  aptitude  of  language  that  could 
be  developed  to  the  height  Webster  attained. 

In  the  case  of  Gibbons  vs.  Ogden,  the  Legislature  of 
NewYorkJiad  granted  to  Fulton  anrl  Livingston  the 
exclusive  steamboat  navigation  of  _all  waters  within  the 
i  uHsctiction  oi  that  jStjjgTfor^  term  of  years.  They 
hatr^TalnecT  an  injunction  againsta  steamboat  which 


in_New^Jersey,  for  an  infringemejiLof  their  monopoly, 
and  the  question  was  whether  this  vessel,  which  navi- 
gated  the  watersjjf  both  New  York  andJN'ew  Jersey. 
was  within  the  jurisdiction  of  Congress,  which  by 
the  Constitution  is  given  power  to  regulate  conTmerce 
Between  tHe  btates."Even  if  New  York  could  "grant  a 
monopoly  of  navigation  of  its  own  waters,  could  such  a 
monopoly  restrain  a  vessel  engaged  in  interstate  com 
merce?  The  courts  of  New  York,  including  its  court 
of  last  resort,  had  sustained  the  injunction  and  had 
decided  that  the  grant  of  monopoly  was  no  infringement 
of  the  right  of  Congress  to  regulate  commerce  between 
the  States. 

This  was  probably  the  most  far-reaching  decision 
on  the  side  of  monopoly  that  has  ever  been  made  in  this 
country.  It  in  effect  allowed  every  State  to  interfere 
with  and  cut  up  the  navigable  waters  of  the  Union 
that  happened  to  run  through  its  territory  in  a  way 
that  would  have  made  the  free  and  unrestricted  naviga 
tion  of  our  time  an  impossibility.  It  was  a  virtual 
dissolution  of  the  Union,  at  least  in  a  commercial  sense. 
But  only  a  few  minds  realized  this.  Most  people  had 

184 


GIBBONS  VS.    OGDEN 

not  then  been  educated  up  to  a  full  understanding  of 
all  the  phases  the  subject  could  assume. 

We  have  since  then  had  vast  struggles  with  monopo 
lies,  and  we  are  still  in  the  midst  of  them.  But  when 
the  Supreme  Court  at  Washington  reversed  the  decision 
of  the  New  York  court  of  last  resort  in  Gibbons  vs. 
Ogden,  it  undoubtedly  cut  off  a  stupendous  source  of 
one  of  the  worst  kinds  of  monopoly  of  which  it  is  pos 
sible  to  conceive.  The^Supreme  Court^hddjthat  the 
navigable  waters  of  tHe~country  are  under  the  exclusive 
control  of  the  Union  and  of  Congress ;  no  State  can 
monopolize  even_that  portion  of  them  which  lies  within 
hffr  borders.  __Tbe  jurisdiction  of  Congress  over  them  is.u 
exclusive  and  not  concurrently  in  Congress  and  the 
States. 

Possibly  the  National  Supreme  Court  would  have 
taken  this  broad  view  of  its  own  accord,  no  matter 
what  lawyer  had  argued  against  the  monopoly.  But  as 
Webster  was  the  lawyer^'on  whom  the  task  fell,  he  has 
been  usually  regarded  as  having  won  for  us  this  most 
important  safeguard  of  the  stability  of  the  American 
Union.  His  argument  involved  an  exhaustive  investi 
gation  of  the  history  and  nature  of  the  power  of  Con 
gress  over  commerce.  This  was  in  many  respects  the 
most  important  power  under  the  Constitution ;  it  was 
concerned  with  the  subject  which  had  led  to  the  adop 
tion  of  the  Constitution;  for  it  was  the  confusion  of 
commercial  regulations  by  the  States  and  the  difficulty, 
if  not  the  impossibility,  of  dealing  with  them  which  led 
to  the  calling  of  the  convention  of  1787.  Webster's 
reasoning  on  the  question,  as  we  read  it  in  his  published 
works,  would  be  hard  to  excel ;  it  made  the  decision  of 
the  New  York  court,  though  an  ably  worded  one,  seem 
like  rank  absurdity. 

About  three  years  afterwards  he  argued  another 
famous  case,  Ogden  vs.  Saunders,  raising  the  question 
whether  a  State  Legislature  could  pass  a  bankruptcy 

185 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

act  discharging  a  debtor  from  his  obligations  without 
violating  the  provision  of  the  National  Constitution, 
that  no  State  can  pass  an  act  impairing  the  obligation 
of  a  contract.  ,h*Webster  had  the  side  against  the  State 
and  established  the  now  long  accepted  doctrine  that  only 
Congress  can  pass  a  bankruptcy  act. 

These  three  cases  between  1818  and  1827 — the  Dart 
mouth  College  case,  Gibbons  vs.  Ogden,  and  Ogden  vs. 
Saunders — not  to  mention  minor  ones,  took  Webster 
through  an  experience  of  constitutional  investigation 
and  reasoning  to  which  his  powerful  mind  responded  in 
a  marvellous  degree.  It  is  doubtful  if  there  was  another 
mind  in  the  country  that  could  have  so  responded. 
When  we  add  to  it  his  experience  in  the  Massachusetts 
Constitutional  Convention,  and  in  Congress,  we  can 
understand  better  his  fame  from  the  replies  to  Hayne 
and  Calhoun  and  how  he  became  known  as  the  defender 
of  the  Union  and  the  expounder  of  American  principles 
of  government. 


186 


VII 


FIELD  SPORTS DISCOVERY  OF  MARSHFIELD VISIT  TO 

JEFFERSON — LOSS   OF   HIS   SON 

WEBSTER  was  much  exhausted  by  his  labors  in  Con 
gress  and  the  Supreme  Court  in  that  winter  and  spring 
of  1824.  He  had  grown  thin  and  emaciated. 

"  We  have  had  a  busy  time  of  it,"  he  writes  to  Judge 
Story,  "  since  you  left  us.  For  myself  I  am  exhausted. 
When  I  look  in  the  glass  I  think  of  our  old  New  England 
saying,  '  as  thin  as  a  shad.'  I  have  not  vigor  enough  left, 
either  mental  or  physical,  to  try  an  action  for  assault  and 
battery." 

The  redgods  were  calling  him  and  he  was  longing 
for  his  rod  and  gun.  In  moving  from  the  interior  of 
New  Hampshire  to  the  seacoast  he  had  added  largely 
to  his  tastes  for  sports  afield.  He  had  learned  about  the 
wild  fowl,  the  fascination  of  beach  bird  shooting,  the 
plover,  the  calico  birds,  the  yellow  legs,  the  curlew,  and 
the  snipe.  He  had  a  crony  in  Boston,  Mr.  George 
Blake,  the  United  States  District  Attorney,  from  whose 
clutches,  it  is  said,  criminals  had  sometimes  escaped  be 
cause  their  prosecutor  was  more  busy  with  thoughts 
afield  than  in  preparing  for  their  conviction.  So  Web 
ster  writes  to  him  for  sympathy,  says  he  is  not  so 
reduced  but  that  he  could  walk  with  a  bit  of  iron  on  his 
shoulder,  and  asks  if  Mr.  Blake  is  ever  found  driving 
with  an  umbrella  in  his  chaise. 

Umbrella  was  the  name  given  by  Blake  to  his  shot 
gun  when  in  its  case  ;  for  lawyers  of  a  sporting  turn  have 
to  resort  to  many  legal  fictions  in  a  community  which 
regards  them  as  fit  only  for  hard  work.  The  story 
is  told  of  a  rather  distinguished  lawyer  who  had  an 
unrestrainable  fancy  for  baseball  matches,  and  used 

187 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

habitually  to  leave  word  with  his  clerks  on  such  occa 
sions  that  he  had  gone  to  argue  a  case  in  the  Supreme 
Court  of  New  Jersey. 

Webster's  high  reputation  enabled  him  to  be  a  little 
bolder.  He  developed  himself  in  the  sporting  world, 
as  years  and  his  widening  acquaintance  gave  him  oppor 
tunity,  until  it  was  a  well-recognized  part  of  his  charac 
ter  and  part  of  his  popularity  with  the  public.  To  the 
end  of  his  life  he  would  often  spend  an  evening  of 
most  absorbed  happiness  in  very  unnecessary  cleaning 
and  tinkering  of  his  guns.  He  had  pet  names  for  them 
arising  from  their  qualities  or  circumstances.  One  was 
Mrs.  Patrick,  another  Learned  Selden,  and  one,  of  all 
things  in  the  world,  Wilmot  Proviso.1 

It  is,  no  doubt,  a  reversion  to  the  old  type  of  the 
race,  this  fascination  for  hunting,  this  joy  in  the  very 
sight  of  the  weapons,  which  even  the  most  artificially 
civilized  person  feels  at  times  so  strongly  that  his 
occupation  at  his  roll-top  desk  seems  as  if  it  were  after 
all  a  waste  of  time  and  not  a  man's  work.  And  then 
all  the  world  loves  a  hunter;  he  makes  almost  as  strong 
an  appeal  to  the  popular  imagination  as  the  soldier. 
For  so  many  thousand  years  we  lived  that  life,  we  came 
home  empty-handed  to  meet  the  disappointed  looks  of 
the  women  and  children,  and  spend  a  cold  and  cheerless 
evening  in  the  cave ;  or  we  came  home  staggering  under 
our  burden  and  threw  it  down  before  the  cave,  and 
all  was  joy  and  shouts  of  laughter,  and  we  were  the 
great  man,  the  only  sort  of  great  man  the  swarming  little 
ones  and  the  women  knew ;  and  the  fires  were  soon 
burning  and  the  feast  was  prepared;  and  all  the  next 
day  we  rested  in  the  sweet  repose  of  tired  health,  dream 
ing  over  again  that  ennobling  struggle  with  nature's 
forces  of  the  day  before.  There  were  so  many  hun 
dred  thousand  years  of  this  that  it  will  take  several  hun 
dred  thousand  more  of  spiritually  minded  civilization  to 
kill  that  old  fire  in  our  blood. 

1  Harvey,  Reminiscences,  p.  283. 
188 


FIELD  SPORTS 

Webster  was  fond  of  duck  shooting,  and  added  deer 
hunting  to  his  amusements.  A  pair  of  the  now  extinct 
species  of  Labrador  ducks  was  shot  by  him  in  Vineyard 
Island  off  the  coast  of  Massachusetts,  and  sent  to  Audu- 
bon,  the  naturalist,  who  had  never  before  seen  this 
species.  Audubon's  drawing  was  made  from  the  two 
sent  to  him  by  Webster,  and  they  are  now  in  the  collec 
tion  of  the  National  Museum  at  Washington.2 

He  may  possibly  have  reached  the  real  height  of 
sport,  the  shooting  of  quail,  and  the  ruffed  grouse  of 
New  England,  and  the  prairie  chickens  of  the  West 
over  pointers  and  setters.  That  phase  of  human  hap 
piness  is  supposed  to  have  been  little  known  to  New 
Englanders  in  his  time.  It  was  the  southern  planter 
and  the  Pennsylvanians  and  New  Yorkers  who  im 
ported  the  finest  strains  of  bird  dogs  and  the  most 
expensive  shotguns  in  the  period  before  the  Civil  War. 
At  least,  so  we  are  informed  by  Mr.  Wise  in  his  "  His 
tory  of  the  Pointer  in  America,"  and  being  both  a 
southerner  and  a  northerner  he  ought  to  know. 

In  both  Lanman's  and  Lyman's  reminiscences  there 
are  references  to  quail  being  rather  numerous  about 
Marshfield,  but  I  have  been  unable  to  find  any  very  posi 
tive  evidence  of  Webster  being  much  interested  in  this 
sort  of  sport.  There  is  a  sentence  in  one  of  his  letters 
written  in  August,  1846,  to  his  man  at  Marshfield,  which, 
at  first,  seems  to  imply  that  he  was  a  wing  shot  over 
dogs.  "  If  not  done  already,"  he  writes,  "  I  wish  you  to 
put  the  curlew  all  right  and  make  that  dog  point  better." 
The  curlew  was  one  of  his  sailboats,  and  making  that 
dog  point  better,  may  have  referred  to  getting  the  boat 
to  point  closer  to  the  wind.  Lyman,  however,  in  de 
scribing  his  visit  says,  "  He  offered  me  Rachel,  a 
favorite  setter,  which  he  brought  from  England,  and  the 
services  of  an  attendant,  if  I  chose  to  go  out  and  shoot 
quails,  with  one  restriction,  however,  that  several  broods 

2  Elliott's  Wild  Fowl  of  North  America,  p.   172. 
189 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

of  these  birds  had  been  reared  during  the  season  in  the 
gardens  and  grounds  near  the  house;  that  these  be 
longed  to  the  family,  and  were  not  to  be  destroyed.3 

He  was  very  fond  of  trout  fishing,  and  made  a  close 
study  of  its  details,  lines,  hooks ;  and  his  favorite  rod 
he  named  Old  Killall.  Here  is  one  of  his  trout  letters 
from  Sandwich,  on  Cape  Cod : 

Dear  Sir:     I  send  you  eight  or  nine  trout,  which  I  took 
yesterday,  in  that  chief  of  all  brooks  Mashpee.     I  made  a  long 
day  of  it  and  with  good  success,  for  me.    John  was  with  me, 
full  of  good  advice,  but  did  not  fish  nor  carry  a  rod. 
I  took  26  trout,  all  weighing  17  pounds  12  ounces. 
The    largest     (you    have    him)     weighed    at 

Crocker's    2  pounds  8  ounces 

The   five   largest    8  pounds  5  ounces 

The  eight  largest n  pounds  8  ounces 

I  got  them  by  following  your  advice;  that  is,  by  careful 
and  thorough  fishing  of  the  difficult  places  which  others  do 
not  so  fish.  (Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xvi,  p.  677.) 

The  letter  goes  on  with  details  of  methods,  hooks, 
and  sly  jokes  on  his  friends,  entirely  too  long  to  quote. 
He  laid  out  the  summer  of  1824  to  be  spent  in  complete 
recreation. 

"  The  ensuing  summer,"  he  wrote  to  his  brother,  "  I  shall 
do  nothing  but  move  about  and  play.  I  shall  certainly  spend 
a  fortnight  with  you  at  Boscawen,  and  the  rest  you  may  spend 
with  us.  August  we  will  pass  together  on  Cape  Cod.  My 
wife  wants  some  one  to  ride  about  with  her,  while  I  am 
shooting." 

They  went  to  Sandwich,  on  Cape  Cod,  in  summer, 
he  elsewhere  says,  from  1820  to  1827.*  As  he  and  his 
wife  were  driving  back  to  Boston  at  the  close  of  the 
summer  of  1824  in  a  New  England  chaise,  they  followed 
the  shore  road,  and  when  thirty-four  miles  from  Boston 
were  about  passing  by  the  farm  overlooking  the  sea  in 
Marshfield  Township,  which  afterwards  became  so  inti- 

8  Works,  National  Ed.,  vol.  xvi,  p.  465 ;  Lyman's  Memorials, 
vol.  ii,  pp.  06,  105. 

4  Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xiii,  p.  551. 

100 


DISCOVERY  OF  MARSHFIELD 

mately  associated  with  Webster's  name.  The  farm  was 
the  property  of  Captain  John  Thomas,  whose  ancestor  in 
Revolutionary  times  had  been  a  loyalist  and  fled  to  Nova 
Scotia.  The  land  of  the  farm  was  about  one  hundred 
and  sixty  acres,  not  fertile,  but  beautifully  situated 
between  the  hills  and  the  marshes  inside  the  sea  beach. 
Mrs.  Webster  was  the  first  to  be  attracted  by  the  ex 
treme  beauty  of  the  spot,  and  she  urged  her  husband  to 
turn  in  at  the  gate  and  pay  a  visit  to  the  family.5  The 
visit  was  so  mutually  agreeable  that  the  Thomases  per 
suaded  them  to  remain  for  several  days ;  and  for  many 
summers  after  that  they  spent  part  of  their  holiday  at 
the  Thomas  house,  no  doubt  staying  longer  after  1827, 
when  they  gave  up  Sandwich,  until  at  last  they  bought 
the  Thomas  place,  adding  to  it  hundreds  of  surrounding 
acres,  and  made  it  their  home.  It  became  typical  of  the 
great  statesman,  the  resort  of  his  friends  and  admirers 
all  his  life,  and  still  the  resort  of  pilgrims. 

When  he  was  re-elected  to  Congress  in  the  autumn 
of  1824  by  a  good  majority  and  returned  to  Washington, 
Webster  went  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Ticknor  on  a  visit  to 
Jefferson  and  Madison,  at  their  plantations  in  Virginia. 
Both  of  these  elderly  men  had  formed  a  high  opinion 
of  Webster  and  were  glad  to  see  him.  The  visit  was  in 
some  respects  a  step  back  into  the  past,  and  a  glimpse 
of  the  old  life  of  cultivation,  books,  and  ease  which  had 
been  led  by  prominent  people  on  their  great  isolated 
estates,  the  remains  of  the  old  colonial  aristocracy  that 
had  made  the  Revolution  and  the  National  Government 
possible  and  was  now  slowly  giving  place  to  the  new 
type  of  modern  times, 

5  Harvey,  in  his  Reminiscences,  p.  265,  says  that  Webster, 
finding  the  game  growing  scarce  at  Sandwich  on  Cope  Cod,  had 
been  recommended  to  the  farm  of  Captain  Thomas  as  a  place 
affording  good  sport;  that  Webster  was  intending  to  visit  it 
on  this  drive  home,  and  that  Mrs.  Webster,  when  attracted  by 
the  beauty  of  the  place,  was  not  aware  that  it  was  the  farm 
they  were  seeking. 

191 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

In  this  respect  Mr.  Ticknor's  account  of  the  excur 
sion  is  of  permanent  value ;  but  too  long  to  quote.  They 
travelled  by  wagon  over  the  rough  roads  and  in  the  rat 
tling  tumble-down  vehicles  which  have  been  found 
in  the  southern  country  ever  since.  They  rode  on  horse 
back  when  staying  with  their  hosts,  wondering  at  the 
scarceness  of  the  population  and  the  cheerlessness  of 
everything  off  the  great  plantations  that  were  well 
kept  up. 

"  We  rode  through  woods  and  across  fields,  Mr.  Webster 
making  himself  merry  as  he  had  the  day  before  with  wondering 
where  '  Phil.  Barbour's  constituents  could  be,'  for  this  was  Mr. 
Philip  Barbour's  district.  Before  we  returned,  however,  we 
made  a  visit  to  Mrs.  Barbour,  to  whom  Mr.  Webster  gave  an 
account  of  her  husband,  whom  he  had  left  in  Washington, 
which  visibly  interested  her."  (Curtis,  vol.  i,  p.  223.) 

Webster  had  long  talks  with  both  the  distinguished 
veterans  on  the  old  Congress  and  the  Revolution,  and 
no  doubt,  filled  his  mind  with  valuable  constitutional 
lore  from  Madison.  Jefferson  was  then  eighty-one 
years  old,  but  rode  on  horseback  every  day  in  fine 
weather,  and  was  busy  superintending  the  building  of 
the  University  of  Virginia  which  he  had  founded. 
Webster  and  the  Ticknors,  on  the  way  home,  wrote  out 
their  recollection  of  a  great  deal  Jefferson  had  said 
about  the  Revolution  and  its  characters,  but,  being  rather 
against  the  popular  view,  it  has  not  been  much  used  by 
historians. 

A  couple  of  extracts  from  Webster's  letters  to  the 
Ticknors  must  be  given  to  show  his  intimacy  with  them 
and  the  sort  of  man  he  had  become. 

"  I  find  that  you  are  really  gone ;  and  if  I  could  tell  you 
how  sorry  I  am  I  would.  I  passed  the  house  yesterday,  and 
gave  a  look  to  the  windows,  but  saw  no  inviting  faces.  .  .  . 

"  If  my  constituents  accuse  me  of  negligence  and  inatten 
tion  this  session,'  I  shall  lay  it  all  off  on  Mrs.  Ticknor.  She 
had  no  right,  I  shall  say,  to  be  so  agreeable  as  to  draw  my 
attention  from  the  mighty  affairs  of  state  while  she  was  here, 
and  to  create  depression  or  a  kind  of  I-am-not-quite-ready-to- 

192 


LOSS  OF  HIS  SON 

go-to-work  feeling  by  her  departure.  What  will  State  Street 
say  to  it,  think  you,  if  its  affairs  should  be  neglected,  although 
Shakespeare  be  ever  so  well  read,  or  all  the  versions  of  Sir 
John  Moore's  burial  revised  and  corrected?" 

"  I  write  this  in  the  House,  while  Mr.  Clay  is  speaking  on 
the  Cumberland  Road.  The  ladies  are  all  present,  inside  the 
House.  I  have  not  reviewed  them;  for  I  am  sure  there  is 
none  of  them  that  I  have  lately  seen  or  know,  unless  it  be 
Mrs.  (A.  H.)  Everett.  I  see  Wallenstein  among  them,  as 
becomes  a  diplomatist.  Mr.  Clay  speaks  well.  I  wish  you 
were  here  to  hear  him.  The  highest  enjoyment,  almost,  which 
I  have  in  life,  is  in  hearing  an  able  argument  or  speech.  The 
development  of  mind  in  those  modes  is  delightful.  In  books, 
we  see  the  result  of  thought  and  of  fancy.  In  the  living 
speaker,  we  see  the  thought  itself,  as  it  rises  in  the  speaker's 
own  mind.  And  his  countenance  often  indicates  a  perception 
before  it  gets  upon  his  tongue."  (Curtis,  vol.  i,  pp.  227,  231.) 

That  same  winter  Webster  lost  his  son,  Charles, 
in  Boston,  a  child  two  years  old,  a  sad  grief  to  both 
parents,  and  some  stanzas  of  verse  which  he  sent  to  his 
wife  reveal  a  side  of  the  great  orator's  character  not 
often  brought  to  notice. 

"The  staff  on  which  my  years  should  lean 
Is  broken  ere  those  years  come  o'er  me ; 
My  funeral  rites  thou  shouldst  have  seen, 
But  thou  art  in  the  tomb  before  me. 

"  Thou  rear'st  to  me  no  filial  stone, 

No  parent's  grave  with  tears  beholdest; 
Thou  art  my  ancestor — my  son ! ! 

And  stand'st  in  heaven's  account  the  oldest. 

"  On  earth  my  lot  was  soonest  cast, 

Thy  generation  after  mine ; 
Thou  hast  thy  predecessor  passed, 
Earlier  eternity  is  thine. 

"  I  should  have  set  before  thine  eyes 

The  road  to  heaven,  and  showed  it  clear ; 
But  thou,  untaught,  springest  to  the  skies, 
And  leav'st  thy  teacher  lingering  here. 

"  Sweet  seraph,  I  would  learn  of  thee, 

And  hasten  to  partake  thy  bliss  ! 

And,  Oh !  to  thy  world  welcome  me, 

As  first  I  welcomed  thee  to  this." 

13  193 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

The  construction  of  these  verses  is  reminiscent  of 
Latin  and  of  the  English  writers  that  followed  such 
models,  and  shows  how  thoroughly  Webster  had  studied 
and  formed  himself  on  those  schools.  One  of  Mrs. 
Webster's  letters  to  her  husband  at  this  time  gives  us  a 
valuable  glimpse  of  her  character. 

"  I  have  a  great  desire  to  write  to  you,  my  beloved  hus 
band,  but  I  doubt  if  I  can  write  legibly,  as  I  can  hold  my  pen 
but  in  my  fingers.  I  have  just  received  your  letter,  in  answer 
to  William's,  which  told  you  that  little  Charley  was  no  more. 
I  have  dreaded  the  hour  which  should  destroy  your  hopes,  but 
trust  you  will  not  let  this  event  afflict  you  too  much,  and  that 
we  both  shall  be  able  to  resign  him  without  a  murmur,  happy 
in  the  reflection  that  he  has  returned  to  his  Heavenly  Father, 
pure  as  I  received  him.  It  was  an  inexpressible  consolation 
to  me,  when  I  contemplated  him  in  his  sickness,  that  he  had 
not  one  regret  for  the  past,  nor  one  dread  for  the  future;  he 
was  patient  as  a  lamb  during  all  his  sufferings ;  and  they  were 
at  last  so  great,  I  was  happy  when  they  were  ended. 

"  I  shall  always  reflect  on  his  brief  life  with  mournful 
pleasure,  and,  I  hope,  remember  with  gratitude  all  the  joy  he 
gave  me;  and  it  has  been  great."  .  .  .  (Curtis,  vol.  i,  pp. 
228,  229.) 


104 


VIII 

BARGAIN       AND       CORRUPTION — CRIMES       ACT ENGLISH 

FRIENDS BUNKER    HILL    ADDRESS NIAGARA 

EULOGY   ON    ADAMS    AND   JEFFERSON 

POLITICS  were  not  of  the  usual  partisan  type  in  those 
times.  There  was  no  formal  nomination  of  the  candi 
dates  for  the  Presidency  by  party  conventions.  The 
curious  condition  of  affairs  in  this  era  of  good  feeling 
and  overwhelming  Democratic  ascendency  is  shown 
by  the  six  names,  all  of  them  Democrats,  and 
all  of  them  at  first  considered  as  having  about  equal 
chances  for  the  Presidency — John  Quincy  Adams,  Gen 
eral  Jackson,  Calhoun,  Clay,  Crawford,  and  Clinton. 

The  candidacy  of  Jackson  and  his  increasing  popu 
larity  were  an  astonishment  to  everybody,  including 
himself.  It  was  the  first  revelation  of  the  passion  of 
our  people  for  a  mere  soldier  candidate  and  for  a  certain 
crude  form  of  democracy  and  demagogism.  Jackson 
had  the  very  great  distinction  of  conquering  the  small 
British  force  which  in  the  War  of  1812  had  attempted 
to  take  New  Orleans.  It  was  a  victory  over  a  very 
incompetent  and  blundering  British  general,  and  the 
battle  had  no  effect  on  the  war  because  it  was  fought 
after  peace  had  been  declared.  But  these  considerations 
did  not  in  the  least  dim  the  glory  of  it  in  the  popular 
mind. 

He  had  conducted  with  eminent  success  the  war 
upon  the  Creeks  and  Cherokees  in  Alabama  and  against 
the  Seminoles  and  Spaniards  in  Florida.  But  these 
wars  were  against  very  inferior  foes.  The  Seminoles 
of  Florida  numbered  only  700  fighting  men,  and  his 
war  against  them  cost  $20,000,000,  most  of  it,  of  course, 
squandered,  or  stolen  by  agents  and  officials.1  The  Span- 

1  Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xiii,  p.  137. 
195 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

iards  in  Florida  were  so  weak  and  so  evidently  at  the 
mercy  of  the  United  States  that  Florida  was  bought  from 
Spain  for  $5,000,000.  These  absurdly  easy  victories  were 
exaggerated  by  spreadeagleism,  until  among  the  masses 
of  our  people  Napoleon  seemed  nothing  compared  with 
Jackson.  He  had  executed  without  excuse,  as  was 
generally  believed,  two  British  subjects,  and  had  acted 
with  such  arbitrary  violence  and  intemperate  self-will 
that  Henry  Clay  and  other  prominent  leaders  denounced 
him  without  measure  in  Congress ;  and,  while  his  mili 
tary  success  was  freely  admitted,  he  was  generally  re 
garded  by  the  conservative  classes  in  the  Eastern  and 
Middle  States  as  totally  unfit  by  training,  tempera 
ment,  and  experience  for  the  Presidency. 

He  was  altogether  the  most  extraordinary  man  that 
has  ever  appeared  in  American  politics.  Very  tall,  over 
six  feet,  and  holding  himself  very  erect,  he  was,  how 
ever,  not  much  thicker  than  a  match.  Of  not  a  vigorous 
constitution,  suffering  from  serious  ill  health  most  of  his 
mature  life,  finally  consumptive,  supported  through  one 
of  his  military  campaigns  by  his  physicians  bathing  him 
in  lead  water  every  few  hours  to  keep  down  inflamma 
tion,  he  had,  nevertheless,  a  nervous  force  and  an  in 
domitable  spirit  that  almost  set  disease  at  defiance,  that 
drove  him  into  every  imaginable  enterprise  and  danger, 
and  to  which  was  added  a  Scotch-Irish  shrewdness  that 
always  brought  him  out  safe. 

One  of  his  peculiarities  was  a  passion  for  duels, 
street  fights,  and  brawls  of  every  description,  and  these 
had  given  him  a  reputation  among  the  fighting  class 
in  the  southwest.  He  loved  homicide,  and  always  ex 
hibited  on  his  mantelpiece  at  the  Hermitage,  the  pistol 
with  which  he  had  killed  Mr.  Dickinson.  To  visitors 
who  examined  the  weapon  he  frankly  told  the  fact. 
Besides  his  numerous  duels  he  had  a  street  fight  with 
Benton  and  Benton's  brother,  from  which  he  carried 
for  many  years  a  pistol  bullet  in  his  shoulder;  and  in 
some  of  his  brawls  he  boasted  of  having  used  sticks  and 
fence  rails. 

196 


BARGAIN  AND  CORRUPTION 

His  manners  and  dress  have  been  described  by  some 
of  his  contemporaries  as  slovenly  and  disgusting.  He 
has  been  described,  when  President  and  receiving  vis 
itors,  as  chewing  and  spitting  tobacco,  unshaven,  and 
regardless  of  his  clothes,  or  smoking  an  enormous  pipe. 
Others  have  described  him  as  exactly  the  reverse ;  punc 
tilious  in  costume,  most  agreeable  in  manner,  and  capa 
ble  of  entertaining  and  delightful  conversation.  The 
curious  part  about  this  is  that  both  sides  seem  to  have 
told  the  truth.  He  could  play  or  pose  in  any  role, 
coarse  or  refined,  and  did  it  repeatedly.  In  spite  of  his 
slovenliness  on  some  occasions  there  is  no  doubt  that 
he  could  dress  to  perfection;  and,  of  course,  if  he  had 
not  possessed  personal  attractiveness  of  some  kind  he 
could  never  have  reached  the  position  he  attained. 

There  is,  fortunately,  an  anecdote  that  shows  him 
in  both  roles  on  the  same  occasion.  When  James 
Buchanan  brought  to  the  White  House  to  present  to  him 
a  very  distinguished  lady,  he  found  the  President  alone, 
his  face  covered  with  a  bristling  beard  of  several  days' 
growth,  in  a  soiled  dressing  gown  very  much  the  worse 
for  wear,  and  smoking  an  old  clay  pipe.  On  remonstrat 
ing  with  him,  he  received  for  answer :  "  Buchanan,  I  knew 
a  man  once  who  succeeded  admirably  and  made  a  for 
tune  simply  by  minding  his  own  business."  Jackson, 
however,  retired,  and  soon  returned  neatly  shaven,  in 
faultless  attire,  and  full  of  courtly  dignity.  He  entered 
into  a  most  agreeable  conversation  with  the  lady,  and 
Buchanan  was  greatly  surprised  "  when  more  than  an 
hour  had  passed  and  she  was  still  talking  with  the  man 
she  had  dreaded  to  meet  as  one  but  little  better  than  a 
wild-cat."  2 

On  another  occasion,  when  about  to  sit  down  to  din 
ner,  he  was  telling  war  stories  to  some  of  his  old  cronies 
in  very  unprintable  language.  His  wife,  who  had  re 
cently  become  religious  and  joined  the  church,  inter 
rupted  him  to  ask  a  blessing  before  dinner;  and  he 

2  Brady,  The  True  Andrew  Jackson,  pp.  153-155. 
197 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

immediately  stopped,  asked  the  blessing,  and  then  went 
on  with  the  unprintable  language.  In  the  last  years 
of  his  life  he  also  experienced  a  conversion  and  joined 
the  church.  He  and  his  wife,  to  whom  he  was  most 
devotedly  attached,  were  not  infrequently  seen  sitting 
together  after  dinner,  each  smoking  a  long  reed  pipe. 

He  had  followed  farming,  store-keeping,  saddlery, 
and  various  occupations  in  the  southwest,  and  among 
them  had  been  a  lawyer,  but  principally  on  the  criminal 
side  of  the  court.  He  was  very  ignorant  of  law  and  still 
more  ignorant  of  finance,  business,  and  government. 
He  was,  however,  one  of  the  keenest  judges  of  human 
nature  and  a  most  consummate  actor  of  the  parts  and 
poses  that  the  politics  of  that  day  required.  The  West 
and  South,  and  not  a  few  in  the  North  and  East,  were 
becoming  frantic  with  enthusiasm  for  him;  and  he 
played  them  to  the  top  of  their  bent.  It  became  one 
of  the  standing  jokes  of  the  time,  that  if  anyone  at 
tempted  to  reason  with  such  people,  one  of  them  would 
shout  "  Hurrah  for  Jackson  " ;  then  all  would  throw  up 
their  hats,  and  reasoning  would  cease.  For  years  after 
his  death  there  were,  it  is  said,  old  people  in  country 
districts  who  would  still  vote  for  him  so  as  "  to  make 
sure  they  were  right." 

Webster  favored^ Calhoun^lthough  he  and  Calhoun 
in  after  years~"were  by  no  means  in  accord.  When  "he 
saw  that  the  choice  for  the  Presidency  was  turning 
towards  either  Adams  or  Jackson,  he  wrote  to  his 
brother  Ezekiel  in  New  Hampshire:  "I  hope  all  New 
England  will  support  Mr.  Calhoun  for  the  Vice-Presi 
dency.  If  so,  he  will  probably  be  chosen,  and  that  will 
be  a  great  thing.  He  is  a  true  man,  and  will  do  good 
to  the  country  in  that  situation." 

The  Presidential  election  of  that  autumn  of  1824 
resulted  in  Mr.  Calhoun  being  chosen  Vice-President 
by  a  large  majority  of  the  electors;  but  in  the  voting 
for  President,  General  Jackson  had  ninety-nine  elec 
toral  votes,  John  Quincy  Adams  eighty-four,  Crawford 

198 


BARGAIN  AND  CORRUPTION 

forty-one,  and  Clay  thirty-seven.  None  of  the  candi 
dates  having  received  a  majority,  the  choice  had  to  be 
decided  by  the  House  of  Representatives,  voting  by 
States,  on  the  three  highest  candidates — Jackson, 
Adams,  and  Crawford.  All  were  Democrats;  and  the 
friends  of  Clay  gave  their  votes  to  Adams,  and  elected 
him. 

Before  the  election  was  decided  in  the  House  of 
Representatives  there  were  certain  contingencies  quite 
obvious  to  politicians.  Clay  was  out  of  the  contest 
and  could  not  be  voted  upon  because  he  had  not  received 
enough  electoral  votes;  but  he  was  Speaker  of  the 
House,  his  influence  large,  and  he  might  have  his 
friends  and  followers  vote  for  either  Adams  or  Jack 
son.  In  short,  he  and  his  followers  held  the  balance 
of  power  and  could  elect  either  of  the  candidates  they 
chose.  They  would  probably  elect  Adams,  because 
Clay  was  opposed  to  Jackson,  believing  him  purely  a 
military  character,  and  unfit  for  the  Presidency. 

If  Jackson  were  elected  he  might  continue  Adams  in 
the  office  of  Secretary  of  State ;  or  he  might  appoint  Clay 
Secretary  of  State,  especially  if  Clay  helped  to  elect 
him.  Likewise,  if  Clay  helped  to  elect  Adams,  the  said 
Adams  might  make  Clay  his  secretary.  The  secretary 
of  stateship  at  that  time  usually  led  to  the  Presidency ; 
was  generally  spoken  of  as  the  stepping  stone  to  the 
Presidency. 

James  Buchanan,  a  friend  of  Jackson,  visited  Clay, 
and  in  delicate  language  suggested  that  Clay  would 
become  Secretary  of  State  if  he  would  support  Jack 
son.  Clay  cut  the  hint  off  short  by  showing  that  he 
would  have  nothing  to  do  with  such  an  arrangement.3 

On  the  28th  day  of  January,  1825,  sometime  before 
the  election  in  the  House,  a  letter  was  published  in  a 
Philadelphia  newspaper  announcing  the  anonymous 
writer's  suspicions  of  an  infamous  plot ;  that  the  friends 

8  Colton,  Life  and  Times  of  Clay,  vol.  i,  p.  418. 
199 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

of  Adams  had  approached  the  friends  of  Clay  and 
offered  the  secretaryship  of  state  for  an  election;  and 
the  friends  of  Clay  then  went  to  the  friends  of  Jackson 
and  said  that  if  they  would  offer  the  same  price  they 
would  close  with  them.  But  the  friends  of  Jackson, 
being  of  lofty  Roman  virtue,  rejected  with  the  contempt 
it  deserved  the  mean  offer  of  "  bargain  and  corrup 
tion."  Henry  Clay  and  his  followers  had,  therefore, 
it  was  understood,  gone  over  to  Adams  and  would 
secure  his  election. 

This  story  was  spread  through  all  the  newspapers, 
and  Clay  from  his  place  in  Congress  openly  branded 
it  as  a  lie,  demanded  the  name  of  the  author,  and  im 
plied  that  the  controversy  had  better  be  settled  by  a 
duel.  The  author  disclosed  himself,  George  Kremer, 
a  somewhat  eccentric  member  of  Congress,  much  stared 
at  in  Washington  for  wearing  a  curious  leopard  skin 
overcoat,  a  man  of  very  moderate  ability  coming  from 
that  part  of  the  population  of  Pennsylvania  known  as 
"  the  Pennsylvania  Dutch."  It  was  soon  seen  that  he 
had  not  written  the  letter  of  his  own  motion;  he  was 
a  mere  dupe  of  the  Jackson  managers,  and  not  in  the 
class  of  life  with  whom  men  like  Clay  fought  duels. 
He  announced  in  Congress  that  he  was  ready  to*  prove 
the  statements  in  the  letter;  and  when  a  committee  was 
appointed,  refused  to  appear  before  the  committee.  He 
admitted  in  conversation  that  he  did  not  wrrite  the  letter ; 
that  he  had  not  intended  to  accuse  Mr.  Clay  of  corrupt 
conduct;  was  willing  to  apologize  to  Mr.  Clay;  would 
appeal  the  whole  matter  to  a  higher  tribunal  than 
Congress,  meaning  the  people;  and  in  short,  jumped 
about  as  the  Jackson  managers  pulled  the  wires.  Clay 
could  not  fight  a  duel  with  such  a  creature,  who,  Web 
ster  wrote  to  his  brother,  was  a  man  "  with  whom  one 
would  think  of  having  a  shot  about  as  soon  as  with  your 
neighbor,  Mr.  Simeon  Atkinson,  whom  he  somewhat 
resembles."  Clay  wanted  the  man  who  had  really 
written  the  letter;  but  he  would  never  disclose  himself, 

200 


PORTRAIT    OF    WEBSTER    BY    HARDING 
In  the  possession  of  Dr.  Guy  Hinsdale 


BARGAIN  AND  CORRUPTION 

though  Clay  always  believed  it  was  Jackson's  friend, 
Senator  Eaton,  of  Tennessee. 

The  object  of  the  scheme  was,  of  course,  to  frighten 
Clay  and  his  friends  from  voting  for  Adams ;  but  it 
had  not  the  slightest  effect.  They  voted  for  Adams;  / 
he  was  elected ;  and  he  made  Clay  his  Secretary  of  > 
State  just  as  the  dupe  Kremer  had  said  he  would. 
There  Clay  seems  to  have  made  a  mistake.  He  would 
have  saved  himself  a  world  of  trouble  if  he  had  avoided 
fulfilling  the  prophecy  of  his  enemies.  But  there  is 
very  little  use  of  saying  that.  Having  made  no  arrange 
ment  or  bargain  with  Adams,  he  scorned  any  precau 
tion,  and  believed  the  whole  thing  would  blow  over 
and  be  forgotten  in  a  year. 

It  lasted  all  his  life;  it  may  have  prevented  his 
attaining  the  Presidency ;  he  never  got  through  defend 
ing  himself.  Prominent  and  sensible  people  of  every 
party,  Webster,  Adams,  Benton,  and  others  declared 
him  innocent,  and  gladly  furnished  proof  of  his  inno 
cence;  but  it  was  of  no  use.  The  Jackson  party  had  a 
cry,  "  that  bargain  corruption  to  sell  the  Presidency," 
and  it  worked  like  magic  among  the  masses  who  at  that 
time  were  more  credulous  and  more  easily  trapped  by 
demagoguery  and  tricks  than  they  have  ever  been  be 
fore  or  since. 

Jackson  declared  the  story  true  and  that  having  the 
largest  electoral  vote,  and  being  the  favorite  of  the 
popular  majority,  he  had  been  cheated  out  of  the 
Presidency  by  Clay's  "  bargain  and  corruption."  Called 
upon  by  Clay  for  proof,  he  said  that  Buchanan  had 
told  him  so.  Buchanan,  then  obliged  to  come  forward, 
explained  that  in  a  conversation  with  General  Jackson 
he  told  the  General  of  a  report  that  if  elected  he  would 
appoint  Adams  as  his  Secretary  of  State ;  that  the  report 
was  injurious,  and,  if  untrue,  should  be  contradicted ; 
and  that  the  General  then  contradicted  it  and  said  that 
he  had  never  intimated  whom  he  would  appoint,  and  if 
elected  intended  to  go  into  office  untrammelled  by 
promises. 

201 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

This  was  a  denial  of  Jackson's  statement,  and  was 
supposed  to  be  a  severe  blow  to  him.  But  nothing 
was  ever  a  blow  to  Jackson  that  did  not  kill  him. 
He  afterwards,  in  a  somewhat  equivocal  way,  denied 
the  truth  of  Buchanan's  words,  and  declared  that 
Buchanan  had  wanted  him  to  say  that  he  would  appoint 
Clay  Secretary  of  State.4 

Buchanan,  it  will  be  remembered,  had  gone  to  Clay 
in  the  beginning  and  offered  him  the  Secretaryship  of 
State  if  he  would  support  Jackson.  Clay,  smarting 
under  unjust  accusation,  was  on  the  point  several  times 
of  making  public  this  attempt.  Buchanan  always 
begged  him  not  to  do  it;  said  it  would  ruin  him;  and 
Clay,  with  characteristic  generosity,  refrained ;  but 
communicated  it  to  his  biographer,  Colton. 

The  episode  is  discreditable,  but  its  details  must  be 
understood,  because  it  had  a  vast  influence  in  the  poli 
tics  of  the  next  twenty-five  years.  It  was  one  of  the 
most  extraordinarily  powerful  political  cries  that  have 
ever  been  known.  It  could  be  applied  to  all  sorts  of  pur 
poses  and  persons  far  beyond  its  original  application ; 
and  in  the  Great  Debate  of  1830,  Hayne  attempted  to 
involve  Webster  in  it. 

At  the  time  of  the  election  of  Adams  in  Congress, 
Webster  had  been  somewhat  doubtful  how  he  should 
vote.  His  old  party,  the  Federalists,  disliked  Adams, 
who  had  become  more  or  less  of  a  Democrat ;  but  then 
the  Federalists  had  in  effect  no  existence  and  had  no 
candidate  in  the  field.  He  disliked  Jackson,  whose 
claims  he  considered  based  on  the  mere  popularity  of 
military  success  at  the  close  of  the  War  of  1812.  He 
would  have  preferred  Calhoun  for  President.  He  had  a 
great  admiration  for  that  statesman,  and  in  his  letters 
frequently  spoke  o>f  him  as  a  true  man.  But  as  Calhoun 
was  Vice-President,  and  as  all  the  New  England  States 

*  See  generally  on  this  subject,  Parton's  Jackson,  vol.  iii, 
Chap.  X;  Colton's  Life  and  Times  of  Clay;  Rogers'  True 
Henry  Clay,  Chap.  X. 

202 

f 


CRIMES  ACT 

had  given  their  electoral  votes  to  John  Quincy  Adams, 
and  as  Webster  had  nothing  particular  against  him,  he 
felt  it  his  duty  to  follow  the  evident  wishes  of  New 
England. 

The  peculiar  political  situation  of  the  time  in  this 
era  of  good  feeling,  with  the  Federalist  party  extinct, 
is  shown  when  we  find  Webster  at  last  deciding  to 
vote  for  Adams,  only  because,  after  an  interview  with 
him,  Adams  in  effect  promised  that  he  would  ignore 
old  party  distinctions,  and  not  only  refrain  from  pro 
scribing  or  offending  any  of  the  old  Federal  party,  but 
would  make  one  or  two  conspicuous  appointments  from 
among  them.  For  the  next  four  years  Webster  became 
an  administration  man ;  that  is  to  say,  in  effect  a  Demo 
crat,  as  nearly  'everybody  was  at  that  time;  and  he 
was  regarded  as  one  of  the  principal  defenders  of  the 
President  in  the  House  of  Representatives. 

But  nothing  of  great  moment  occurred  in  those  four 
years  to  bring  out  Webster's  powers.  His  time  was 
divided  between  Congress  and  practice  in  the  Supreme 
Court.  This  was  indeed  his  life  for  the  rest  of  his 
days,  except  when  he  was  Secretary  of  State.  From 
December  until  June  Congress  and  the  court  kept  him 
very  busy,  with  very  little  time  for  the  recreations  and 
reading  which  he  loved.  In  summer  and  autumn  he 
broke  loose  into  country  life  at  Cape  Cod,  interfered 
with  a  good  deal,  however,  as  autumn  approached  by 
demands  for  his  legal  services  in  the  courts  of  Massa 
chusetts. 

We  need  not  enlarge  on  his  advocacy  during  those 
four  years  of  internal  improvements  by  Congress,  build 
ing  of  roads,  and  improving  water  ways,  or  of  his 
preparing  and  securing  the  passage  of  the  Crimes  Act 
of  1825,  which  was  a  recodifying  and  amending  to  date 
of  the  criminal  statutes  of  Congress.  All  this  was  im 
portant  work  at  the  time  and  added  to  his  reputation. 
The  Crimes  Act  has  usually  been  regarded  as  one  of  his 
monuments,  was  at  one  time  known  by  his  name,  and 

203 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

has  stood  the  test  of  time.  The  statutes  of  Congress 
defining  crimes  against  the  National  Government  were 
in  very  much  the  same  condition  in  which  the  first 
Congress  had  left  them.  There  were  serious  defects 
in  them,  and  they  required  to  be  brought  up  to  the 
development  of  the  government  and  changed  times. 
This  was  a  difficult  undertaking  and  required  great 
political  tact ;  for  the  Democratic  and  States  rights  feel 
ing  of  the  country  was  very  jealous  of  the  criminal 
jurisdiction  of  the  National  Government.  Webster  suc 
ceeded.  He  was  good  in  some  kinds  of  political  tact, 
especially  in  not  giving  unnecessary  offense,  and  in  the 
strategy  of  the  legal  advocate.  But  he  perhaps  could 
never  have  rivalled  Henry  Clay  in  that  statesman's 
particular  form  of  subtlety  which  carried  so  much  com 
plicated  and  seemingly  impossible  legislation  through 
Congress.  Webster  would  hardly  have  cared  for  so 
much  running  about  and  conversation.  Clay  was 
always,  they  say,  "  talking,  dining  and  receiving."  The 
details  of  Webster's  work  on  the  Crimes  Act  were  prob- 
,  ably  very  interesting ;  but  we  seem  to  know  little  or 
\nothing  about  them.  Very  likely  Judge  Story  helped 
;him.  We  find  him  writing  to  the  Judge  in  this  year 
Ifor  help  to  draft  a  bankrupt  law.5 

j       He  has  been  sometimes  criticized  for  always  attack 
ing  and  resisting,  and  seldom,  if  ever,  associating  him 
self  with  the  positive  establishment  of  any  great  piece  of 
f  beneficial  legislation.     He  had  no  instinct,  Francis  Lie- 
!    ber  said,  for  the  massive  movements  of  mankind ;  he 
i    was  not  a  leader,  originator,  or  conceiver  like  Clay; 
i   he  was  greatest  only  when  battling  down  a  proposition 
or  as  its  champion.     There  is  a  slight  amount  of  truth 
in  this,  and  the  critics  might  now  go  farther  and  say 
that  one  of  the  most  beneficial  pieces  of  legislation  in  his 
time,  the  sub-treasury  plan,  still  in  force,  was  resisted 
and  ridiculed  by  him  as  the  absurdity  of  all  absurdities.0 

6  Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xvi,  p.  116. 
6  Lieber,  Life  and  Letters,  p.  256. 
204 


CRIMES  ACT 

. 

Clay  stands  for  the  protective  tariff  of  1824,  and  to  a 
great  extent  for  the  principle  of  protection  to  American 
industries.  Webster,  resisted  protection  in  1824  and 
accepted  it  unwillingly  in  1828.  Clay  stands  for  the 
Missouri  compromise  in  1820,  the  nullification  compro 
mise  of  1833,  and  the  slavery  compromise  of  1850.  He 
prepared  all  those  compromises  and  engineered  them 
through  Congress  with  a  skill  that  Webster  possibly 
may  have  had,  but  seldom  cared  to  exercise.  He  pre 
ferred  usually  to  rely  on  his  oratory  alone, ._  He  opposed 
Clay's  Missouri  compromise  of  1820.  He  opposed  the 
nullification  compromise  of  1833,  but  favored  that  of 
1850  with  such  conspicuous  brilliancy  that  the  wrath  of  , 
the  free-soilers  and  abolitionists  was  turned  from  Clay 
to  him.  He  drafted  a  judiciary  bill  and  a  bankruptcy 
bill,  neither  of  which  passed.  He  advocated  for  a  long 
time  the  renewal  of  the  charter  of  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States,  which  was  never  accomplished. 

Of  positive  legislation  the  Crimes  Act  was  all  his 
own ;  and  also  the  law  for  removing  from  State  to 
Federal  courts  all  cases  involving  questions  with  foreign 
governments;  also  the  measure  of  1815,  compelling  all 
payments  by  the  government  to  be  made  in  national 
currency  instead  of  depreciated  State  bank  paper.  He 
always  advocated  internal  improvements  by  the  general 
government,  and  that  was  certainly  successful  and  bene 
ficial  legislation  with  which  his  name  is  connected ;  but, 
of  course,  it  was  not  his  invention  or  the  invention  of 
anyone  in  particular.  He  assisted  materially  in  estab 
lishing  the  rule  in  the  departments  at  Washington,  that 
our  diplomatic  papers  and  negotiations  with  foreign 
governments  must  be  conducted  from  the  point  of  view 
of  the  whole  country  and  not  on  the  basis  of  partisan 
politics.  Last,  but  not  least,  he  was  the  author  of  the 
Ashburton  Treaty  with  England  in  1842,  which  was 
legislation  of  a  very  high  order,  settling  the  northeastern 
boundary  dispute,  impressment  of  sailors,  and  the  right 
of  visit,  which  were  questions  that  had  been  in  dispute 

205 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

between  the  two  countries  for  half  a  century  and  were 
expected  to  lead  to  war. 

In  the  times  in  which  he  lived  there  was  as  much 
good  to  be  done  in  preventing  as  in  forwarding  legisla 
tion.  A  large  part  of  his  career  was  devoted  to  battling 
I  down  the  wild  financial  schemes  of  President  Jackson 
I  and  his  party,  and  in  explaining  and  expounding  to  the 
American  people  the  true  principles  of  sound  money 
and  sound  finance.  Another  large  part  of  his  career, 
probably  the  most  important,  was  spent  in  battling  down 
the  southern  doctrines  of  nullification  and  secession,  in 
creasing  American  love  of  union  and  giving  the  people 
arguments  and  ideas  for  supporting  the  Union  and  the 
Constitution.  His  constitutional  arguments  in  Gibbons 
vs.  Ogden,  and  notably  in  the  Dartmouth  College  case, 
created  a  whole  world  of  judicial  decisions  under  which 
we  are  still  living.  All  this  was  not  exactly  legislation 
in  the  strict  sense;  but  it  was  protection  of  the  Con 
stitution  on  which  legislation  is  based,  and  it  has  fur 
nished  the  ideas  and  principles  on  which  the  Civil  War 
was  carried  through  and  on  which  the  modern  amend 
ments  to  the  Constitution  and  a  large  part  of  legislation 
of  the  last  half  century,  as  well  as  the  decisions  of  the 
courts,  are  based.  Webster  was  essentially  a  man  of 
ideas  and  of  convincing  people  of  ideas.  He  knew  his 
strong  point  and  confined  himself  to  it.  If  by  reason 
ing  and  emotion  he  could  convince  the  people  of  an 
idea,  he  willingly  left  the  drafting  of  its  legislation  to 
the  future.7 

7  Another  piece  of  beneficial  legislation  should  perhaps  be 
mentioned  to  his  credit.  "  I  was  ten  days,"  he  said  in  a 
speech  at  Syracuse,  "  a  member  of  the  Massachusetts  legisla 
ture  and  I  turned  my  thoughts  to  the  search  of  some  good 
object  in  which  I  could  be  useful  in  that  position,  and  after 
much  reflection  I  introduced  a  bill  which,  with  the  general 
consent  of  both  houses,  passed  into  a  law,  and  is  now  a  law 
of  the  State  which  enacts  that  no  man  in  the  State  shall  catch 
trout  in  any  other  manner  than  in  the  old  way,  with  an  ordinary 
hook  and  line."  Lanman,  p.  129;  Works,  National  Edition, 
vol.  xiii,  p.  422. 

206 


ENGLISH  FRIENDS 

As  a  man  of  cultivation  and  extensive  knowledge  in 
literature  and  history  he  was  profoundly  interested  in 
England,  the  life  of  her  people,  and  the  doings  of  her 
Parliament  and  public  men  in  this  critical  time  when 
the  Whig  or  Liberal  party  was  working  itself  back 
into  power,  and  free  trade  doctrines  and  reforms  of 
old  Tory  restraints  were  the  great  subjects  of  discus 
sion.  It  is  difficult  for  intelligent  Americans  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  stock  to  be  without  this  interest.  In  those  days, 
perhaps  even  more  than  now,  their  whole  education  at 
school  and  college,  and  the  books  they  read  for  amuse 
ment,  were  essentially  English  and  gave  them  glimpses 
of  the  mother  country  which  incited  them  to  seek  a 
closer  acquaintance.  Webster's  unusually  wide  read 
ing  in  English  literature  naturally  produced  in  him  a 
yery  strong  desire  to  visit  England,  and  for  a  number 
of  years  he  tried  in  a  moderate  way  to  be  sent  as  min 
ister  to  London.  Like  Motley,  Lowell,  Hawthorne,  and 
other  Massachusetts  men  of  distinction  of  that  time, 
he  passionately  craved  the  opportunity  of  two  or  three 
years'  residence  and  study  in  the  "  old  home  "  as  a 
means  of  development  and  an  intellectual  pleasure  of  the 
highest  kind. 

In  the  early  days  of  the  Adams  administration,  a 
party  of  Englishmen  of  liberal  views  came  to  America  to 
travel  and  study  the  republic.  They  were  a  picked  set 
of  promising  young  men  of  political  aspirations ;  with 
out  titles  then;  but  in  subsequent  years  three  of  them 
became  known  as  Earl  Derby,  Lord  Wharncliffe,  and 
Lord  Taunton;  and  the  fourth,  Mr.  John  Evelyn  Deni- 
son,  afterwards  attained  that  very  honorable  and  pecu 
liar  distinction  in  English  political  life,  the  Speakership 
of  the  House  of  Commons.  The  Speaker  has  usually 
been  a  typical  instance  of  the  English  ruling  class;  a 
gentleman  of  means  and  scholarly  tastes,  a  sportsman 
and  game  preserver,  a  man  of  the  world  and  fashion, 
and  with  a  certain  moderation  and  solidity  of  opinion. 
They  brought  letters  of  introduction.  Several  of  them 

207 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

had  a  letter  to  Webster;  and  in  this  letter  it  is  men 
tioned  as  a  sign  of  "  the  improving  liberality  of  the 
times  "  that  these  young  gentlemen  leaving  Europe  and 
the  grand  tour  behind  them  should  go  to  pay  their  com 
pliments  to  the  United  States.  The  letter  was  no  doubt 
correct  in  stating  that  it  was  the  first  experiment  of 
the  kind ;  and  great  things  were  expected  of  the  tourists 
"  for  whom  Corregio  and  Michael  Angelo,  Versailles 
and  the  Coliseum  have  such  feeble  attractions  in  com 
parison  with  the  wonders  of  New  England  and  Wash 
ington."  8 

The  young  travellers  saw  all  the  notable  places  and 
persons  in  America,  diligently  studied  our  politics  and 
ways  of  life,  were  much  entertained,  and  a  great  deal 
in  the  company  of  Webster  and  Judge  Story,  with  whom 
Mr.  Denison  kept  up  the  friendship  by  correspondence 
for  many  years. 

They  were  all  of  value  to  Webster  because  they 
gave  his  insatiable  mind  a  chance  to  learn  many  things 
about  English  politics  he  could  hardly  obtain  in  any 
other  way.  These  young  liberals  had  taken  up  the  idea, 
much  developed  since  their  day,  of  amicable  settlement 
of  all  difficulties  between  America  and  England,  oblivion 
for  all  past  differences,  more  cordial  relations  and  a 
fuller  appreciation  of  the  necessity  for  co-operation 
and  sympathy  among  all  the  members  of  the  great  Eng 
lish  speaking  race.  Webster,  like  other  New  Eng- 
landers,  was  in  full  accord  with  these  opinions  and 
indeed  an  ardent  advocate  of  them. 

There  was  not  then  the  easy  means  of  reaching 
England  in  a  voyage  of  seven  or  eight  days;  nor  were 
there  any  of  the  books  or  full  newspaper  reports  which 
we  now  have  for  learning  about  English  doings  from 
day  to  day.  We  see  the  changed  conditions  very  plainly 
when  we  find  Webster  relying  upon  Mr.  Denison  for  a 
large  part  of  the  rest  of  his  life  to  send  him  every  year 
from  England  pamphlets,  books,  and  information  with 

8  Webster,  Works,  vol.  xvi,  p.  in. 
208 


BUNKER  HILL  ADDRESS 

which  no  one  now  would  think  of  troubling  a  private 
person.  But  it  was  then  still  the  age  when  men  of 
education  relied  upon  private  correspondence  for  a  large 
part  of  their  information. 

In  1825  there  came  an  opportunity  to  Webster  to 
deliver  the  address  on  the  anniversary  of  the  Battle 
o<f  Bunker  Hill.  He  had  now  learned  to  value  these 
occasional  addresses,  more  than  his  speeches  in  Con 
gress,  as  a  means  of  increasing  his  reputation  as  an 
orator.  He  always  took  the  most  exhaustive  pains  and 
care;  possibly  too  much;  for  they  smell  of  the  lamp 
more  than  his  famous  speeches  in  debate.  They  were 
after  all  artificial  occasions  and  not  like  a  hot  reply 
to  Hayne  or  Calhoun  in  the  Senate. 

It  was  June ;  trout  fishing  season ;  he  was  free  from 
Congress  and  the  Supreme  Court;  and  a  large  part  of 
the  oration,  especially  the  famous  part  addressed  to  the 
veterans  of  the  Revolution,  was  composed  while  wading 
with  his  rod  in  Mashpee  Brook,  a  stream  which  flows 
into  the  ocean  in  his  favorite  region,  the  southeastern 
coast  of  Massachusetts.  He  would  let  his  line  run 
carelessly  down  the  stream,  his  son  says,  and  then 
lost  in  his  thoughts  would  advance  one  foot,  extend  his 
hand,  and  begin  to  speak,  "  venerable  men,  etc." 

He  worked  himself  stale  over  the  speech  until  it 
seemed  to  him  like  a  very  dull  performance.  "  No  tone 
in  it,"  he  said,  all  "  dissolution  and  thaw."  It  was,  how 
ever,  far  better  in  diction  and  style  than  the  Plymouth 
oration.  It  was  more  Websterian.  There  are  perma 
nent  passages  in  it,  passages  that  will  probably  always 
be  read  with  interest  and  pleasure.  The  part  where  he 
turned  towards  the  seats  where  the  old  veterans  of  the 
Revolution  were  sitting,  and  addressed  them,  is  unde 
niably  fine. 

"  Venerable  men !    You  have  come  down  to  us  from  a  for 
mer  generation.     Heaven  has  bounteously  lengthened  out  your 
lives  that  you  might  behold  this  joyous  day.     You  are  now 
where   you    stood   fifty   years  ago,   this  very  hour,   with   your 
14  209 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

brothers  and  your  neighbors,  shoulder  to  shoulder  in  the  strife 
for  your  country.  Behold  how  altered !  The  same  heavens 
are  indeed  over  your  heads ;  the  same  ocean  rolls  at  your  feet ; 
but  all  else  how  changed !  You  hear  now  no  roar  of  hostile 
cannon,  you  see  no  mixed  volumes  of  smoke  and  flame  rising 
from  burning  Charlestown.  The  ground  strewed  with  the 
dead  and  the  dying ;  the  impetuous  charge ;  the  steady  suc 
cessful  repulse;  the  loud  call  to  repeated  assault;  the  sum 
moning  of  all  that  is  manly  to  repeated  resistance ;  a  thousand 
bosoms  freely  and  fearlessly  bared  in  an  instant  to  whatever 
of  terror  there  may  be  in  war  and  death; — all  these  you  have 
witnessed,  but  you  witness  them  no  more.  All  is  peace." 

This  was  among  the  first  passages  of  Webster's 
eloquence  to  be  widely  quoted  and  regarded  as  of  per 
manent  value.  It  fulfils  the  definition  he  afterwards 
gave  that  eloquence  resides  in  the  occasion.  Most  of 
/  the  Bunker  Hill  oration  is  taken  up  with  a  summary 
/  of  the  progress  of  the  world;  the  prospect  of  ever- 
/  lasting  peace  now  that  the  Napoleonic  wars  were 
over;  the  advance  of  Republican  ideas  of  government; 
the  wonderful  advances  of  science  and  the  mechanic 
arts ;  "  the  unexampled  and  almost  incredible  use  of 
machinery,"  as  it  seemed  to  him  and  the  people  of  that 
time.  But  to  us,  the  progress  then  attained  seems  like 
nothing,  and  these  portions  of  the  oration  have  lost  all 
the  novelty  which  gave  them  vogue.  It  was  rather  a 
new  thing  to  summarize  progress  in  such  a  complete 
and  enthusiastic  way.  Since  then  it  has  been  done  a 
thousand  times;  and  when  one  of  the  summaries  is 
a  few  years  old  it  is  obsolete. 

The  Bunker  Hill  oration  was  a  great  event  in  its 
day.  So  far  as  adding  to  his  reputation  was  concerned 
Webster  could  hardly  have  asked  more  from  it.  Every 
one  read  it  in  America ;  it  was  admired  in  England ;  and 
translated  into  French  and  other  languages  on  the  conti 
nent  of  Europe.  But  so  hard  had  Webster  wrought  on 
it  and  so  particular  had  he  become,  that  as  soon  as  it 
was  delivered  he  began  to  worry  himself  with  the 
thought  that  he  had  not  used  enough  Anglo-Saxon 
words.  On  the  morning  after  its  delivery  he  handed 

210 


NIAGARA 

it  to  one  of  the  students  in  his  office  in  Boston,  saying, 
"  There,  Tom,  please  to  take  that  discourse  and  weed 
out  the  Latin  words." 

In  the  early  summer  of  1825  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Webster 
with  Judge  Story  and  his  wife  and  some  friends  made 
a  journey  to  see  Niagara  Falls.  Such  an  excursion  on 
a  return  ticket  is  now  often  taken  by  clerks  or  even 
laboring  men,  and  nothing  much  thought  of  it.  It 
hardly  seems  serious  enough  to  record  in  a  biography 
except  that  in  those  days  it  was  something  of  an  event 
in  a  person's  life,  almost  equal  to  a  trip  to  Africa  in 
our  time.  Niagara  was  then  one  of  the  great  wonders 
of  the  world,  and  had  not  been  outshone  by  the  Yellow-  ' 
stone  Park,  the  Yosemite,  or  the  glaciers  of  Alaska. 
The  Websters  and  Storys  spent  part  of  June  and  nearly 
all  of  July  on  the  expedition,  travelling  in  coaches  from 
Boston  and  on  the  slower  passenger  boats  of  the  Erie 
Canal  across  New  York.  Nothing  that  has  since  been 
written  of  that  region  equals  in  freshness  and  interest 
the  letters  which  Webster  and  the  Judge  wrote  home 
to  their  friends  and  relatives.  It  shows  how  important 
are  first  impressions  and  early  descriptions  of  even 
great  objects  in  nature  before  they  became  hackneyed. 

The  Judge  was,  as  usual,  interested  in  everything, 
and  wrote  well  about  everything,  giving  rather  more  de 
tails  than  Webster,  and  describing  Trenton  Falls  and 
other  forgotten  wonders  and  beauties  of  that  country 
with  an  enthusiasm  which  would  no  doubt  bring  a 
very  supercilious  smile  to  the  face  of  a  modern  globe 
trotter.  He  was  a  thorough  Massachusetts  man  of 
that  time  and  carried  with  him  the  Massachusetts 
atmosphere;  it  was  the  time  of  the  intellectual  ascend 
ency  of  Unitarianism,  and  the  Judge  was  a  strong 
Unitarian,  seeking  out  the  Unitarian  preachers  to  be 
found  on  his  journey.  The  wonderful  physical  vigor 
of  Webster  impressed  him.  "  He  has,"  he  said,  "  a 
giant  constitution  and  can  bear  every  sort  of  fatigue." 

Most  of  Webster's  letters  were  addressed  to  Mrs. 

21 1 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

Blake,  the  accomplished  wife  of  his  shooting  companion 
in  Boston.  It  was  the  duty  and  custom  of  the  time  that 
he  and  the  Judge  should  use  their  best  efforts  to  send 
home,  to  be  passed  about  and  read,  accounts  of  distant 
and  remarkable  places ;  for  in  no  other  way  could  such 
accounts  be  obtained.  But  for  us  all  these  places  and  a 
great  many  more  have  been  described  to  death  in  news 
papers,  magazines,  and  books  until  a  person  who  should 
undertake  to  describe  Niagara  in  a  letter  in  the  manner 
of  Webster  or  the  Judge,  would  be  put  down  as  a  bore 
or  a  mere  schoolboy.  But  the  magazines  and  news 
papers  have  seldom  improved  on  Webster's  description 
of  what  was  then  considered  the  marvellous  sight  when 
you  went  in  a  little  distance  between  the  falling  mass  of 
water  and  the  rock  over  which  it  was  precipitated. 

"  Water,  vapor,  foam,  and  the  atmosphere  are  all  mixed 
up  in  sublime  confusion.  By  our  side,  down  conies  this  world 
of  green  and  white  waters,  and  pours  into  the  invisible  abyss. 
A  steady,  unvarying,  low  toned  roar  thunders  incessantly  upon 
our  ears ;  as  we  look  up,  we  think  some  sudden  disaster  has 
opened  the  seas,  and  that  all  their  floods  are  coming  down 
upon  us  at  once;  but  we  soon  recollect  that  what  we  see  is 
not  a  sudden  or  violent  exhibition,  but  the  permanent  and 
uniform  character  of  the  object  which  we  contemplate.  There 
the  grand  spectacle  has  stood  for  centuries,  from  the  creation 
even,  as  far  as  we  know,  without  change.  From  the  beginning 
it  has  shaken,  as  it  now  does,  the  earth  and  the  air;  and  its 
unvarying  thunder  existed  before  there  were  human  ears  to 
hear  it."  (Private  Correspondence,  vol.  i,  p.  390.) 

Webster  had  a  long  holiday  that  summer  of  1825. 
He  had  had  a  severe  winter  in  Congress  and  in  the 
courts ;  and  after  his  return  from  the  Niagara  tour  he 
arjd  Mrs.  Webster  were  at  Sandwich,  on  Cape  Cod, 
until  well  into  the  autumn.  Five  years  more  of  this 
routine  work  in  Congress  and  the  courts  now  separated 
him  from  the  great  event  of  his  life,  the  reply  to  Hayne, 
on  which  so  much  of  his  fame  is  supposed  to  rest. 
There  were  many  minor  things,  and  some  important 
ones  in  those  five  years  which  should,  perhaps,  be  de- 

212 


NIAGARA 

scribed.  He  had  now  an  influence  in  Congress  so  com 
manding,  his  ability  in  debate  and  argument  was  so 
convincing,  that  sarcastic  complaints  of  it  can  be  found 
in  the  speeches  of  other  members;  and  in  the  next  five 
years  this  influence  steadily  increased. 

Among  his  minor  efforts  was  an  attempt  to  satisfy 
the  demand  of  the  time  for  a  reorganization  of  the 
United  States  Courts.  The  Supreme  Court  judges  at 
that  time,  when  not  sitting  as  the  court  of  appeal  and 
last  resort,  held  circuit  courts  in  different  parts  of  the 
country  which  was  divided  into  districts  for  the  pur 
pose.  The  modern  system  of  confining  the  Supreme 
Court  judges  to  purely  appellate  functions  and  having 
a  different  set  of  judges  for  the  circuit  and  district 
courts  had  not  then  grown  up.  It  was  regarded  by 
conservative  lawyers,  like  Webster,  as  very  important, 
that  the  Supreme  Court  judges  should  vary  their  appel 
late  duties  by  conducting  jury  trials  on  the  circuit,  so 
that  they  could  see  "  in  practice  the  operation  and 
effect  of  their  own  decisions,  and  have  that  inter 
course  with  other  judges,  with  the  bar  and  with  the 
community  which  had  heretofore  been  found  such  a 
useful  means  of  information."  In  the  enormous  in 
crease  of  litigation  in  modern  times  this  method  has 
been  abandoned ;  and  the  judges  of  courts  of  last  resort, 
State  as  well  as  National,  now  live  secluded  from  the 
world  in  order  to  turn  out  the  immense  number  of 
decisions  and  opinions  required. 

It  was  also  considered  by  many  as  vitally  important 
that  the  personnel  of  the  Supreme  Court,  consisting 
of  Marshall,  Story,  and  five  others,  should  remain  as  it 
was,  as  long  as  possible.  These  seven  judges  had 
grown  accustomed  to  acting  together.  They  had  har 
monized  for  many  years  in  their  views  of  the  great  con 
stitutional  questions.  They  had  decided  these  questions 
favorably  to  Federalism,  Union,  and  the  power  of  the 
National  Government  and  unfavorably  to  disunion,  sec 
tionalism,  and  extreme  State  rights.  They  had  added 

213 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

to  the  dignity  and  reputation  of  the  court;  they  were 
admired  and  respected  by  the  Bar ;  they  wished  to  con 
tinue  in  the  old  line ;  and  they  were  averse  to  an  increase 
of  their  numbers  which  might  break  up  the  very  success 
ful  harmony  of  views  on  certain  important  questions. 

But  increasing  population  and  expansion  in  the  west 
demanded  more  circuit  courts;  and  this  could  be  accom 
plished  only  by  increase  in  the  number  of  the  Supreme 
Court  judges  or  by  confining  them  to  purely  appellate 
functions,  both  of  which  seemed  undesirable.  There 
were  many  of  the  Democratic  party  who  were  jealous  of 
the  Supreme  Court's  power  to  declare  State  laws  un 
constitutional  and  were  inclined  to  favor  an  act  of 
Congress  restricting  the  court's  power  in  this  respect. 
If  the  question  of  reorganizing  the  court  was  raised  at 
all,  it  was  feared  that  these  extreme  State  rights  persons 
might  accomplish  their  purpose. 

To  Webster,  as  chairman  of  the  judiciary  committee, 
fell  the  delicate  duty  of  taking  through  Congress  some 
measure  which  would  satisfy  the  needs  of  the  time  and 
not  endanger  conservative  principles.  He  finally  com 
promised  by  adding  three  new  judges,  provided  that 
six  of  the  ten  judges  should  be  a  quorum  for  the  Su 
preme  Court.  The  bill  passed  the  House,  but  failed  in 
the  Senate ;  and  the  reorganization  of  the  courts  went 
over  to  a  later  period  of  history.  The  bill,  however, 
had  its  value,  no  doubt,  as  showing  a  desire  on  the 
part  of  Congress  to  conciliate  the  Western  States.  It 
probably  lessened  their  antipathy  to  the  Supreme  Court. 
The  episode  illustrates  Webster's  methods  and  opinions, 
his  conservatism  and  his  friendliness  with  the  judges. 
"  If  the  bill  passes,"  he  wrote  to  Judge  Story,  "  well ;  if 
not,  we  have  made  a  fair  offer,  and  the  court  will 
remain  at  seven  some  years  longer." 

Another  specimen  of  his  work  in  Congress  was  his 
speech  in  support  of  President  Adams's  plan  to  send 
envoys  to  Panama  to  a  congress  of  the  South  American 
provinces  then  in  the  midst  of  their  struggles  to  free 

214 


EULOGY  ON  ADAMS  AND  JEFFERSON 

themselves  from  Spain.  It  was  an  innocent  enough 
proposal;  but  it  led  to  endless  debate,  and  was  made 
the  occasion  for  organizing  opposition  to  the  adminis 
tration.  An  attempt  was  made  to  fasten  instructions 
on  the  envoys  as  to  what  they  should  discuss  or  consult 
upon  with  the  respresentatives  of  other  countries  they 
would  meet.  This  was  regarded  by  Webster  as  an 
unconstitutional  infringement  of  the  prerogatives  of 
the  President.  It  was  for  the  President  to  instruct 
the  envoys;  and  Congress  could  not  constitutionally 
interfere  with  his  privilege.  Webster  enlarged,  on  this 
occasion,  in  a  very  interesting  manner  on  the  rela 
tions  of  the  departments  of  the  government  to  one 
another.  It  was  another  experience  and  training  in  that 
constitutional  reasoning  in  which  he  was  becoming 
such  an  adept  that  he  could  argue  many  of  these  im 
portant  questions  without  immediate  preparation. 

After  another  laborious  winter  in  Washington  he 
again  had  an  opportunity  to  deliver  one  of  those  formal 
orations  or  addresses.     John  Adams  and  Thomas  Jef 
ferson,  of  the  Revolution,  died  on  the  same  day,  the 
4th  of  July,  1826,  and  within  a  few  hours  of  each  other. 
This  curious  coincidence,  the  great  age  of  both  of  the 
men,    and    their    illustrious    services    to    the    country,  i 
aroused  an  unusual  public  interest.     Who  but  Webster,  j 
the  orator  of  Plymouth  and  of  Bunker  Hill,  would  be 
equal  to  such  an  occasion  ?     He  was  asked  by  the  mayor  I 
and  officials  of  Boston  to  deliver  an  eulogy  on  the  two! 
great  men,   and   the   date   fixed   upon   was   the   2d  of, 
August,  in  Faneuil  Hall. 

He  worked  hard,  as  usual,  in  preparation,  so  hard  r 
in  this   instance  that  he  wore  out  all  his   faculty  for ; 
judging  of  his  own  work.     Mr.  Ticknor,  whom  he  con-/ 
suited,  found  him  much  embarrassed  and  dissatisfied, 
walking  up  and  down  his  room.     But  Ticknor  assured 
him  there  was  no  cause  for  uneasiness.     His  emotional 
side   was    evidently    much    aroused,    especially   by    his 
preparation  of  the  speech  which  he  put  into  the  mouth 

215 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

of  John  Adams  as  having  been  delivered  in  reply  to 
some  one  in  the  Continental  Congress  who  opposed  the 
adoption  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  "  I 
wrote  that  speech,"  he  afterwards  told  President  Fill- 
more,  "one  morning  before  breakfast,  in  my  library, 
and  when  it  was  finished  my  paper  was  wet  with  my 
tears." 

This  eulogy  on  Adams  and  Jefferson  was  almost  the 
last  of  his  addresses  of  this  sort;  and,  except  for  one 
or  two  passages,  does  not  now  seem  the  best  of  these 
orations  which  added  so  much  to  his  fame.  But  his 
appearance  and  manner  are  said  to  have  been  very 
impressive.  He  was  in  the  prime  of  life,  forty-four 
years  old,  most  handsomely  dressed,  in  the  perfection 
of  manly  beauty  and  strength ;  and  his  bearing,  Ticknor 
says,  was  one  of  "  absolute  dignity  and  power." 

Webster's  anxiety  about  the  oration  was  natural. 
Except  for  the  passage  on  eloquence,  it  does  not  now 
impress  one  as  anything  wonderful.  The  greater  part 
of  it  consisted  of  mere  biography,  a  statement  of  the 
public  services  of  Adams  and  Jefferson ;  very  well  done 
H  is  true;  but  nothing  remarkable.  The  curious  cir 
cumstance  of  their  death,  their  great  age,  and  the 
natural  pathos  and  poetry  of  such  a  situation,  were 
eloquently  commented  on,  and  then  came  the  often 
quoted  passage  on  eloquence: 

"True  eloquence  does  not  consist  in  speech.  It  cannot 
be  brought  from  far.  Labor  and  learning  may  toil  for  it,  but 
they  will  toil  in  vain.  Words  and  phrases  may  be  marshalled 
in  every  way,  but  they  cannot  compass  it.  It  must  exist  in  the 
man,  in  the  subject  and  in  the  occasion.  Affected  passion, 
intense  expression,  the  pomp  of  declamation,  all  may  aspire  to 
it ;  they  cannot  reach  it.  It  comes,  if  it  come  at  all,  like  the 
outbreaking  of  a  fountain  from  the  earth,  or  the  bursting  forth 
of  volcanic  fires,  with  spontaneous  original  native  force." 

This,  like  the  speech  to  the  veterans  in  the  Bunker 
Hill  address,  is  one  of  the  first  of  the  "  Webster  quo 
tations,"  the  first  of  his  utterances  to  pass  into  per- 

216 


EULOGY  ON  ADAMS  AND  JEFFERSON 

manent  literature.  Curiously  enough  he  gave  an 
illustration  of  his  definition  of  eloquence  at  the  end  of 
his  own  oration  when  he  put  the  supposed  speech  into 
the  mouth  of  John  Adams.  This  is  the  speech  of 
Adams  that  we  used  to  have  in  our  school  declamation 
books :  "  Sink  or  swim,  live  or  die,  survive  or  perish, 
I  give  my  hand  and  my  heart  to  this  vote." 

It  had  an  immense  popularity  at  the  time  because, 
although  nearly  two  generations  had  grown  up  since 
the  Revolution,  they  had  nothing  to  read  about  it;  and 
the  novelty  of  an  actual  debate  on  the  great  question  at 
issue  very  naturally  delighted  them.  For  years  after 
wards  Webster  used  to  receive  letters  asking  if  John 
Adams  really  did  deliver  that  speech. 

But  the  speech  does  not  now  impress  us  as  very  real. 
It  is  far-fetched.  "  Labor  and  learning  toiled  for  it," 
but  they  could  not  compass  it;  and  it  is  the  mere 
"  pomp  of  declamation."  His  old  colleague  in  the  Dart 
mouth  College  case,  Mr.  Joseph  Hopkinson,  of  Phila 
delphia,  wrote  him  a  very  pertinent  comment  on  it,  to 
the  effect  that  his  argument  against  the  Declaration 
was  stronger  than  the  one  for  it.  This  was  in  accord 
with  the  history  of  the  event.  The  strength  of  human 
reasoning  was  with  those  who  opposed  the  measure, 
though  all  elevated  and  noble  feeling  was  in  favor 
of  it. 

Injthe  autumn  of  1826  Websler.w_aS-again_,elected  to 
CongreIs~Tof~!he  third  time  to  represent  Boston.  His 
previous  electrons  had  been  in  the  era  of  good  feeling, 
when  there  were  no  strongly  marked  party  lines.  His 
first  election  from  Boston  in  1822  had  been  unopposed 
by  the  Democrats.  In  1824  he  was  voted  for  and  elected 
without  any  particular  party  contest.  The  vote  for  him 
was  very  large,  almost  unanimous,  and  most  of  the 
voters  were  presumably  Democrats.  In  neither  election 
had  he  been  regularly  nominated  in  anything  like  the 
modern  way  by  any  party.  His  name  had  merely  been 
put  forward  by  certain  leading  citizens.  But  now  under 

217 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

the  administration  of  John  Quincy  Adams,  parties  were 
beginning  to  form  again,  and  they  seem  to  have  divided 
on  the  question  of  supporting  or  not  supporting  the 
President's  administration.  Those  Democrats  who 
were  favorable  to  the  President  had  separated  from 
their  party,  had  formed  a  new  party  organization,  and 
were  calling  themselves  Republicans,  while  the  rest  of 
the  old  Democratic  party  were  afflicted  with  the  craze 
for  General  Jackson  and  had  already  laid  their  plans 
for  electing  him  to  the  Presidency.  Webster  had  sup 
ported  the  administration  of  Adams,  and  in  this  election 
in  1826  was  regularly  nominated,  voted  for,  and  elected 
by  the  new  Republican  party  so-called,  soon  to  become 
the  Whig  party. 

This  election  meant  another  laborious  winter  in  Con 
gress  and  the  courts.  In  the  Supreme  Court,  and  in 
other  courts  of  the  country,  Webster's  practice  was  now 
very  large.  He  had  for  some  time  represented  many 
of  the  claims  under  the  Florida  Treaty  of  1819,  for 
indemnification  of  seizures  by  Spanish  cruisers  in  1788. 
His  fees  in  these  cases,  his  literary  executor  informs  us, 
amounted  to  $70,000.  He  argued  fifteen  cases  in  the 
Supreme  Court  this  winter,  and  his  professional  income 
from  all  sources  would  even  in  our  own  time  be  re 
garded  as  considerable.  Besides  this  he  was  the  most 
conspicuously  able  man  in  Congress ;  he  bore  the  burden 
of  every  important  debate ;  was  the  recognized  defender 
of  the  administration ;  kept  himself  better  informed  than 
any  other  member  on  a  wider  range  of  topics,  political, 
historical,  and  literary ;  and  delivered  speeches,  whether 
on  important  or  unimportant  subjects,  of  such  rare 
dignity  and  tone  as  to  make  the  least  of  them,  even  at 
this  late  day,  a  pleasure  to  read  and  a  fit  subject  for 
study. 


218 


IX 


ELECTION  TO  THE  SENATE DEATH  OF  HIS  WIFE TARIFF 

OF   1828 REMARRIAGE PRESIDENT'S 

POWER   OF   REMOVAL 

THAT  winter  of  1826-27  was  Webster's  last  service 
in  the  lower  House  of  Congress.  The  failing  health  of 
Mr.  Mills,  one  of  the  Senators  from  Massachusetts, 
made  a  vacancy  to  be  filled  in  the  Senate.  Webster 
seemed  inclined  to  remain  where  he  was  ;  and  among  the 
letters  from  the  leaders  of  the  Republican  party  there 
were  some  arguments  in  favor  of  this  view.  He  under 
stood  the  business  of  the  Lower  House  so  thoroughly 
and  was  so  powerful  in  debate  that  his  removal  might 
seriously  weaken  the  administration  party,  which, 
though  a  majority  in  the  Lower  House,  was  none  too 
strong.  But  in  the  Upper  House  it  was  still  weaker 
and  was  in  the  minority;  so  that  it  was,  perhaps,  more 
important  to  strengthen  the  administration  party  in  the 
Senate.  In  the  Lower  House  conditions  might  take  a 
favorable  turn  and  young  men  of  talents  be  developed. 
Governor  Lincoln,  of  Massachusetts,  urged  this  point 
upon  Webster  very  strongly,  and  described  the  Senate  as 
in  every  way  his  proper  field  of  usefulness. 

Governor  Lincoln  himself  could  have  had  the  elec 
tion  to  the  Senate  if  he  had  wanted  it,  and  Webster 
urged  it  on  him.  But  he  positively  declined  it,  and  the 
Massachusetts  Legislature  elected  Webster  in  June, 
1827,  his  service  to  date  back  from  the  4th  of  March 
of  that  year.  This  declination  of  Lincoln,  as  Senator 
Hoar  has  pointed  out,  was  one  of  those  curious  inci 
dents  occasionally  found  in  history,  and  apparently 
leading  to  momentous  consequences.  If  he  had  accepted 
and  had  been  elected  it  seems  as  if  the  course  of  history 
might  have  been  very  much  altered.  The  term  of  six 

2IQ 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

years,  from  1827  to  1833,  for  which  Webster  was  now 
elected,  exactly  covers  his  great  speeches  on  nullification, 
the  greatest  of  his  life,  the  reply  to  Hayne  and  the  reply 
to  Calhoun,  of  immeasurable  influence  on  the  American 
Union.  Lincoln  could  certainly  not  have  delivered  those 
speeches;  and  Webster  could  not  have  delivered  them 
in  the  Lower  House  of  Congress.1 

Unfortunately  for  Webster,  when  on  his  way  to 
Washington  in  November  to  take  his  seat  in  the  Senate 
and  begin  his  new  duties,  he  was  stopped  in  New  York 
by  the  serious  illness  of  his  wife,  who  accompanied 
him.  Her  trouble  was  a  tumor  of  rather  long  stand 
ing;  but  not  much  had  been  thought  of  it  until  lately. 
Distinguished  physicians  in  New  York,  Dr.  Post  and 
Dr.  Perkins,  were  consulted,  and  their  opinion  was  not 
favorable.  She  remained  in  New  York  for  nearly  two 
months  while  hope  and  discouragement  alternated ;  and 
died  on  the  2ist  of  January,  1828.  At  the  funeral  in 
Boston,  Webster,  taking  two  of  his  children  by  the 
hand,  walked  close  to  the  hearse  through  the  winter 
streets  to  the  grave.  He  closed  his  Boston  house  and 
disposed  of  his  children  in  the  families  of  friends.  His 
daughter  Julia  went  to  Mrs.  Lee,  a  very  dear  friend 
of  his  wife.  His  son  Fletcher  was  at  school,  and  Ed 
ward,  as  he  expressed  it,  was  to  be  turned  for  "  the 
winter  into  Mrs.  Hale's  little  flock."  This  done  he 
returned  to  Washington  and  his  usual  duties  in  the 
Senate  and  the  courts. 

Webster's  marriage  had  been  a  very  happy  one; 
and  long  after  the  bloom  and  first  impressions  of 
youth  had  passed,  he  and  his  wife  remained  very  con 
genial  companions.  She  sympathized  completely  in  his 
pursuits  and  opinions,  understood  with  more  than  usual 
feminine  intelligence  the  ideas  and  subjects  with  which 
he  dealt,  and  was  intimate  and  friendly  with  his  friends 
and  their  wives,  the  Storys,  the  Masons,  and  the  Tick- 

1Mass.  Historical  Society,  Second  Series,  vol.  xv,  pp.  230- 
238;  Webster,  Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xvi,  pp.  163,  164. 

220 


DEATH  OF  HIS  WIFE 

nors.  Her  loss  was  a  severe  blow  to  him,  possibly 
more  so  than  he  realized.  It  has  been  suggested  that 
certain  regrettable  traits,  extravagance,  debt,  willingness 
to  receive  large  presents  of  money  from  political  ad 
mirers,  and  perhaps  overgenerous  eating  and  drinking 
might  not  have  developed  themselves  if  she  had  lived. 
But  this  is  a  doubtful  speculation;  or  guess,  for  it  is 
nothing  more. 

He  was  very  gloomy  in  Washington  that  winter  and 
spring,  anxious  to  have  his  old  friends  visit  him;  and 
was  very  much  gratified  when  Mr.  Ticknor  and  Pres- 
cott,  the  historian,  came  to  stay  with  him. 

"  I  received  yours  of  the  I3th  this  morning,  and  never 
executed  commission  with  more  alacrity  and  pleasure  than 
this  of  looking  up  rooms  for  you  and  Mr.  Prescott.  It  delights 
me  to  hear  that  you  are  coming,  and  I  shall  certainly  keep  you 
for  a  fortnight. 

"  The  rooms  are  engaged.  They  are  not  strictly  in  the 
house  I  live  in,  but  in  the  same  block  and  quite  proximate. 
My  landlady  has  engaged  them,  and  I  am  to  have  the  pleasure 
of  your  company  at  my  talpie.  When  you  arrive  at  this  far- 
famed  metropolis,  please  direct  tip  coachman  to  set  you  down 
at  Mrs.  Mclntyre's,  PennsylM^mia  Avenue,  nearly  opposite 
Gadsby's  National  Hotel,  a  little  this  side,  precisely  by  the  side 
of  a  pump,  at  a  large  wooden  platform  which  supplies  the 
place  of  a  stepping  stone.  Inquire  for  Mr.  Webster.  If  he  is 
out,  ask  for  Charles — and  the  rest  will  follow  in  regular 
sequence.  I  shall  see  that  there  is  dinner  for  you  at  two 
o'clock  on  Sunday;  and  if  that  day  should  not  bring  you,  at 
four  o'clock  on  Monday." 

In  the  spring  following  his  wife's  death  Webster 
made  that  speech  on  the  new  tariff  law  of  1828,  which 
has  so  often  been  referred  to  in  discussions  on  the 
policy  of  protection.  He  had  seen  the  birth  of  our 
policy  of  protection  soon  after  he  first  entered  Congress 
in  the  tariff  law  of  1816.  He  had  made  a  speech  against 
the  second  tariff  act  of  1824,  and  now  he  spoke  on  this 
third  act  in  1828,  which  carried  still  further  the  prin 
ciple  of  protection,  increasing  duties  and  putting  new 
ones  on  articles  that  had  never  before  been  taxed. 

221 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

Like  all  tariff  bills,  it  was  a  tiresome  list  of  hun 
dreds  of  small  articles,  many  of  them  strange  commer 
cial  names,  that  the  ordinary  person  has  seldom  heard 
of.  A  glance  at  the  two  laws  of  1824  and  1828  shows, 
for  example,  that  macaroni,  gloves  and  lute  strings  are 
taxed  for  the  first  time  in  1828,  and  so  it  goes  on  through 
apparently  trifling  things  up  to  iron,  wool,  hemp,  mo 
lasses,  cotton,  and  the  important  products.  Innumer 
able  interests  had  got  together  and  sought  protection 
for  their  occupations  under  this  new  bill.  Nearly  all 
manufactured  articles  were  taxed  and  their  price  appa 
rently  increased  to  the  consumer.  This  excited  the 
South,  which  believed  that  northern  manufacturers  were 
enriching  themselves  at  her  expense;  and  they  called 
the  new  act  the  "  bill  of  abominations." 

They  blamed  New  England  in  particular,  as  the 
cause  of  all  this  evil ;  and  to  punish  her  and  compel 
her  to  vote  against  the  bill  special  taxes  injurious  to 
her  were  put  in  the  bill  by  its  opponents.  The  tax 
on  molasses  was  the  most  notorious  of  these ;  for  New 
England  used  a  great  deal  of  it,  and  it  was  the  basis  of 
a  large  part  of  her  carrying  trade  to  the  West  Indies. 
Southerners  who  were  opposed  to  the  bill  and  ready 
to  break  up  the  union  because  it  was  finally  passed, 
nevertheless  voted  for  these  punishments. 

But  even  without  these  "  doses  of  medicine,"  as  they 
were  called,  the  bill  was  very  strongly  against  New 
England  because  it  increased  the  taxes  on  iron,  hemp, 
and  duck.  The  increase  of  these  three  taxes  alone  took 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars  from  the  pockets 
of  New  England  ship-owners,  because  it  made  ships 
more  expensive  than  ever  to  build,  repair  and  own  in 
America.  The  producers  of  iron,  hemp  and  duck  were 
protected  at  the  expense  of  the  owners  of  ships.  So 
very  objectionable  were  these  "  abominations "  that 
Webster's  colleague  in  the  Senate,  Mr.  Silsbee,  and  Mr. 
Gorham,  the  Boston  representative  in  the  Lower  House, 
voted  against  the  bill. 

222 


TARIFF  OF  1828 

Webster  took  the  position  of  making  a  speech  in 
which  he  deplored  all  the  "  abominations  "  as  much  as 
anybody;  in  fact,  made  what  was  in  some  respects  a 
rather  free  trade  speech;  but  declared  himself  in  favor 
of  the  bill  because  it  favored  the  woollen  manufacturing 
interests  in  New  England  which  had  grown  up  under 
the  protection  and  encouragement  given  to  them  in 
the  act  of  1824. 

A  large  amount  of  capital  had  been  invested  and 
numerous  people  employed  in  this  industry  and,  by 
changes  in  the  English  duties  on  wool  and  methods  of 
importing  it  since  1824,  a  very  large  part  of  the  pro 
tection  of  our  tariff  law  of  that  year  had  been  neutral 
ized.  The  wool  manufacturers  appealed  to  Congress 
to  save  their  invested  capital.  It  had  been  invested, 
they  said,  in  good  faith  under  the  act  of  1824,  and  in 
reliance  on  that  act.  Congress,  in  short,  had  led  them 
into  the  business  and  must  now  give  them  further 
protection  against  the  new  condition.  The  woollen 
industry  had  accordingly  been  included  in  the  bill  in 
the  manner  desired  by  the  manufacturers. 

For  the  sake  of  this  capital  and  these  people,  Web-  ' 
ster  said  the  tariff  bill  with  all  its  abominations  must 
be  accepted.  He  was  deeply  annoyed  and  worried  at 
reaching  this  conclusion  and  came  to  it  with  great 
reluctance.  But  there  was  no  other  way,  as  it  seemed 
to  him,  to  save  the  woollen  industry  and  its  capital 
which,  having  been  created  by  Congress,  could  not  in 
decency  be  abandoned  by  Congress.  He  declaimed 
savagely  against  the  iniquity  and  trickery  of  a  lumping 
tariff  bill  all  at  one  time,  and  which  must  be  voted  for 
as  a  whole.  But  what  could  he  do  ?  Let  all  this  great 
woollen  industry  perish?  Or  save  it  by  accepting  the 
bill  which  protected  it? 

He  never  heard  the  end  of  this  advocacy  of  a  special 
interest  and  it  is  brought  up  against  his  reputation  to 
this  day.  He  has  been  called  a  mere  attorney  in  the 
Senate  for  a  special  interest.  But  were  not  his  col- 

223 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

league  Silsbee,  and  Gorham  in  the  Lower  House,  as 
much  attorneys  for  a  special  interest  when  they  opposed 
the  bill  because  it  injured  New  England  ship-owners? 
Is  not  a'  protective  tariff  essentially  a  series  or  set  of 
special  interests  ?  and  would  not  anyone  who  advocated 
protection  for  any  commodity  be  an  attorney  for  a 
special  interest  ?  In  the  case  of  such  a  lumping,  drag 
net  sort  of  bill,  it  was  a  nicely  balanced  question  whether 
you  would  try  to  save  shipping  or  wool.  Shipping  was 
still  holding  its  own  in  spite  of  adverse  taxes,  had  long 
held  its  own,  and  might  be  able  to  take  care  of  itself. 
In  fact,  it  took  care  of  itself  in  spite  of  adverse  duties 
down  to  the  time  of  the  Civil  War.  The  wool  industry 
was  new  and  weak,  dependent  on  the  tariff  system, 
already  injured  for  want  of  more  protection.  The  tariff 
system  was  going  on,  and  should  not  New  England 
obtain  a  portion  of  its  benefits  in  return  for  bearing  so 
many  of  its  burdens?  So  Webster  accepted  the  whole 
bill  for  the  sake  of  its  protection  of  wool.2 

The  passage  of  this  tariff  act  of  1828  led  to  great 
events.  In  one  sense  it  led  to  the  Civil  War  of  1861, 
because  it  was  the  beginning  of  the  secession  movement 
in  the  South.  It  furnished  the  excuse  for  building  up 
a  theory  of  nullification  and  secession,  really  intended 
to  protect  slavery,  as  much  as  to  protect  the  South  from 
high  tariff  legislation.  In  South  Carolina  particularly, 
the  new  tariff  was  attacked  with  the  utmost  violence 
and  not  without  exaggeration  of  its  effects.  The  fol 
lowing  year  the  South  Carolina  Legislature  sent  to 
Congress  a  formal  written  protest  arguing  against  the 
law  as  mere  robbery  of  the  agricultural  South,  contrary 
to  all  the  principles  of  free  government,  compelling  her 
to  buy  nearly  all  the  manufactured  necessaries  of  life 
at  an  increased  price  to  enrich  the  North.  Although 
South  Carolina  representatives  in  Congress  had  voted 
for  the  protective  tariff  of  1816,  and  without  finding  it 

2  See  besides  his  speech  a  letter,  Works,  National  Edition, 
vol.  xvi,  p.  147. 

224 


TARIFF  OF  1828 

unconstitutional,  they  now  discovered  that  a  power  to 
protect  domestic  manufactures  by  import  duties  could 
not  be  inferred  from  the  power  to  regulate  commerce 
and  was  not  "  necessary  and  proper  "  for  carrying  into 
effect  the  commerce  regulation  clause  of  the  Consti 
tution.3 

That  summer  of  1828  Webster  returned  to  Boston 
much  depressed  by  his  recent  affliction,  weary  of  poli 
tics  and  law,  and  very  anxious  to  be  with  his  children 
and  have  some  semblance  of  a  home  again.  He  got 
the  children  with  him  in  his  Boston  house,  leaving 
Julia,  however,  most  of  the  time  with  Mrs.  Lee.  He 
could  not  altogether  escape  some  legal  engagements, 
and  at  a  complimentary  dinner  given  to  him  in  Faneuil 
Hall  on  the  5th  of  June  he  was  obliged  to  deliver  a  set 
speech  reviewing  the  political  situation  and  defending 
his  vote  on  the  tariff  and  internal  improvements. 

It  was  the  year  of  a  presidential  election.  The  ad 
ministration  of  John  Quincy  Adams  was  closing,  an 
administration  notable  for  the  advance  of  internal  im 
provements  and  the  protective  tariff.  Internal  improve 
ments,  the  building  of  roads  and  canals,  and  the  deep 
ening  of  rivers  and  harbors  all  over  the  Union  at  the 
expense  of  the  Federal  Government  instead  of  by  the 
States,  was  not  a  new  idea.  But  such  improvements  had 
recently  been  very  much  demanded  for  developing  the 
interior  of  the  country  because  we  were  no  longer  the 
great  neutral  trader  and  ship-owner  since  the  close  of 
the  Napoleonic  wars  had  set  the  European  nations  free 
to  resume  their  ocean  commerce.  The  same  condition 
developed  the  principle  of  protection  to  domestic  indus 
tries,  because  the  increasing  population  could  not  longer 
satisfy  itself  with  agriculture  and  navigation  and  de 
manded  to  be  let  into  manufacturing  by  the  shortest 

8  Gales  and  Seaton,  Congressional  Debates,  vol.  v,  828-29, 
p.  52.  See  generally  for  the  tariff  question  the  debates  of  1828; 
and  for  all  similar  questions  the  debates  are  an  excellent  source 
of  information. 

IS  225 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

method.  The  two  ideas,  the  protective  tariff  and  inter- 
nal  improvements,  received  the  name  of  the  American 
System,  that  is  the  system  for  the  peculiar  and  special 
interests  of  America,  though  sometimes  the  name  has 
been  applied  to  the  protective  tariff  alone.  Henry  Clay 
was  the  great  expounder  of  the  system,  and  its  advocacy 
the  chief  mission  of  his  life. 

Internal  improvements  and  the  protective  tariff  were 
advocated  and  carried  out  so  strenuously  during  the 
Adams  administration  that  political  parties  formed 
again  and  the  era  of  good  feeling  was  completely 
broken  up.  The  followers  of  Adams,  former  Federal 
ists  and  like-minded  Democrats,  believed  that  both  pro 
tection  and  internal  improvements  were  constitutional 
under  that  clause  which  gives  Congress  the  power  to 
regulate  commerce.  The  Jacksonian  Democrats  and 
the  southern  Democrats,  though  many  of  them  had  once 
been  prominent  in  favoring  both  protection  and  internal 
improvements,  now  began  to  discover  that  the  power  to 
regulate  commerce  was  not  broad  enough  to  include 
the  American  System. 

Webster's  previous  political  career  of  nearly  twenty 
years  had  been  in  a  large  degree  free  from  party  heat 
and  even  from  partisanship.  He  had  had  a  rare  oppor 
tunity,  of  which  he  had  taken  full  advantage,  to  build 
up  for  himself  a  broad  reputation  of  statesmanship. 
His  ideas,  his  arguments,  and  his  eloquence  had  won  the 
confidence  of  nearly  all  classes.  He  had  for  some  years 
been  in  a  very  enviable  position  with  his  legal  practice 
in  the  highest  courts  and  the  most  important  cases,  his 
happy  family  life,  his  out-of-door  sports  and  amusement 
from  June  to  November  on  Cape  Cod,  his  liberal,  large- 
minded  interests  of  every  sort,  and  his  acquaintance 
and  correspondence  with  distinguished  foreigners.  But 
now  he  was  in  favor  of  the  re-election  of  Mr.-  Adam-Sy 
against  whom  the  main  body  of  the  Democratic  party 
had  united  with  new  ideas  of  making  the  offices  of 
government  a  fund  for  the  reward  of  partisan  service. 

226 


TARIFF  OF  1828 

Webster  frankly  opposed  this  new  heresy  as  a  source 
f  corruption  and  demoralization  which  might  bring 
the  American  experiment  of  Republican  government  to 
an  early  end.  He  oppc^e^^eiie^LJacJisor^as  its  repre- 
sentativejndjis  a  man  without  any  real"experience"oF 
c^aci^Jirsiaecratt,  "  wholly  unht  for  the  place  to" 
which  he  aspires,"  but  whose  military  exploits  had  capti 
vated  the  imagination  of  the  people. 

Webster Jhus. became,  from  force  of  circumstances 
a  more  strictly  party  man.  The  attacks  upon  him  began 
at  this  period,  and  among  them  was  the  accusation 
already  discussed,  that  at  the  time  of  the  embargo  and 
the  War  of  1812  he  had  been  one  of  the  Federalists  who 
had  designed  to  separate  New  England  from  the  Union 
and  unite  her  to  the  British  provinces. 

Adams    was    supported    very    generally    in    New 
England   for  the  sake  of   his   ability  and   family  his 
tory   and   in   spite   of   his   coldness   and   vote   for   the 
embargo  law.   But  he  was  opposed  by  certain  Federalists 
who  separated  themselves  from  their  party,  joined  the 
Jackson  Democrats,  and  established  in  Boston  a  news 
paper  called  the  Jackson  Republican.     This  paper,  on 
the  29th  of  October,  1828,  published  a  statement,  written 
by  Mr.  Theodore  Lyman,  that  Mr.  Adams  had  disclosed 
to  Jefferson  that  Daniel  Webster  and  some  other  prom 
inent  Federalists  had  in  the  times  before  the  War  of 
1812  been  "engaged  in  a  plot  to  dissolve  the  Union 
and  reannex  New  England  to  Great  Britain."     "  Why 
then,"  it  was  asked,  had  Adams  "  held  to  his  bosom  as  a 
political  counsellor  Daniel  Webster,  a  man  whom  he 
called  in  his  midnight  denunciation  a  traitor  in  1808  ?  " 
Webster  was  greatly  incensed  at  this,  and   acting 
perhaps  in  conjunction  with  other  Federalists  had  Mr. 
Lyman  indicted  and  arrested  for  a  criminal  libel.     Ly 
man  was  a  man  of  wealth,  good  family,  social  and  politi 
cal  prominence,  was  at  times  mayor  of  Boston,  member 
of  the  Legislature,  an  officer  in  the  militia,  and  at  the 
risk  of  his  life  rescued  the  abolitionist,  William  Lloyd 

227 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

Garrison,  from  an  infuriated  mob  in  1835.  Webster 
and  Lyman  had  been  friends,  members  of  the  same 
intimate  social  circle  in  Boston,  and  the  trial  was  quite 
a  scandal  in  its  day.  It  would  hardly  be  mentioned 
here  except  that  Webster's  biographers  have  been 
charged  with  concealing  it  for  the  sake  of  relieving  him 
of  the  odium  of  being  accused  of  plotting  to  destroy  the 
Union. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  Lyman  was  mistaken  in  saying 
that  Adams  had  made  this  charge  against  Webster;  he 
had  simply  made  it  generally  of  Federalists,  as  was  often 
done,  and  Lyman  in  the  heat  of  politics  had  named 
Webster  because  he  was  a  Federalist.  Of  course  Ly- 
man's  counsel,  besides  the  defence  of  inadvertence,  haste, 
and  no  intention  to  injure  Webster,  said  that  it  could 
not  be  a  libel  to  charge  a  person  with  a  plot  to  dissolve 
the  Union  because  "every  State  has  a  right  to  secede 
from  the  Union  without  committing  treason."  This 
has  been  sometimes  thought  particularly  significant ;  but 
is  hardly  any  more  so  than  the  rest  of  the  disunion  talk 
that  had  been  heard  from  time  to  time  ever  since  the 
foundation  of  the  National  Government,  and  was  soon 
to  be  heard  in  full  flood  in  the  debate  with  Hayne. 
Nothing  much  came  of  the  trial  because  the  jury  dis 
agreed,  and  some  years  afterwards  Webster  and  Lyman 
made  up  and  their  families  exchanged  visits.4 

Disunion  was  in  this  year,  1828,  beginning  to  be  a 
serious  subject  of  discussion.  It  seemed  treason  to 
most  Americans  and  a  natural  right  to  others.  It  was 
not  the  New  Englanders  who  were  now  raising  it,  but 
the  South  Carolinians  who  objected  to  the  recent  tariff 
as  benefiting  New  England  at  the  expense  of  the  South. 
In  his  message  to  Congress  in  that  autumn  of  1828, 
President  Adams  had  strongly  expressed  his  disappro 
bation  of  all  sentiments  of  disunion. 

John  Quincy  Adams,  able,  honest,  and  in  politics 

4Josiah  H.  Benton,  Jr.,  "A  Notable  Libel  Case,"  Boston, 
1894;  Curtis,  Life  of  Webster,  vol.  ii,  p.  331- 

228 


TARIFF  OF  1828 

from  his  youth,  was,  however,  a  self-centred,  cold  man, 
inspiring  great  respect,  but  little  enthusiasm.  In  the 
election  he  received  all  the  electoral  votes  of  New  Eng 
land,  but  in  the  South,  where  the  rage  against  the  new 
tariff  was  extreme,  the  whole  electoral  vote  was  cast 
against  him.  General  Jackson  was  elected  with  Calhoun 
as  Vice-President,  and  Jackson  immediately  inaugurated 
great  changes  in  the  methods  of  American  politics.  In 
Washington  that  spring  of  1829,  Webster  -  was"TnucTr" 


lucli 
ings 
the 


disgusted,  but  half  amused  and  determined  to  take  things 
calmly.  He  watched  the  changes  taking  place  and  the 
horde  of  office-seekers  pouring  into  the  capital.  "  A 
great  multitude,"  he  writes,  "  too  many  to  be  fed  without 
a  miracle,  are  already  in  the  city,  hungry  for  office." 
And  the  President  of  the  new  ideas,  a  forceful,  heroic 
man,  no  doubt,  though  of  narrow  intellect,  complacently 
chewed  and  spit  tobacco  as  he  received  his  audiences 
and  advisers.  It  was  certainly  a  rude  shock  to  the  old 
feelings  of  dignity  and  culture,  which  had  come  down 
through  the  old  Federalists — Washington,  Madison,  and 
the  Adamses — from  colonial  times. 

From  a  letter  to  his  brother  Ezekiel  that  spring  we 
are  surprised  to  learn  that  Webster,  weary  of  politics  and 
life  in  Washington,  had  determined  in  the  event  of  a 
certain  contingency  to  resign  from  the  Senate,  abandon 
his  practice  in  the  Supreme  Court,  and  retire  to  the 
practice  of  law  in  Boston. 

"  If  no  change  takes  place  in  my  own  condition,  of  which 
I  have  not  the  slightest  expectation,  and  if  you  are  not  elected, 
I  shall  not  return.  This,  inter  nos,  but  my  mind  is  settled. 
Under  present  circumstances,  public  and  domestic,  it  is  dis 
agreeable  being  here,  and  to  me  there  is  no  novelty  to  make 
compensation.  It  will  be  better  for  me  and  my  children  that 
I  should  be  with  them.  If  I  do  not  come  in  a  public  I  shall 
not  in  a  professional  character.  I  can  leave  the  court  now  as 
well  as  ever,  and  can  earn  my  bread  as  well  at  home  as  here." 
(Private  Correspondence,  vol.  i,  p.  474.) 

He  had,  it  seems,  turned  over  his  children  to  the  care 
of  his  brother's  wife.  If  the  brother  were  elected  to 

229 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

Congress  from  New  Hampshire  and  came  to  live  in 
Washington,  that  would  make  a  home  there  for  Webster 
and  the  children.  The  other  contingency  he  mentions 
as  a  change  in  his  own  condition  possibly  refers  to  his 
remarrying.  His  solitary  condition  in  Washington,  liv 
ing  in  apartments  without  any  of  the  family  life  he  had 
so  long  been  accustomed  to,  had  become  intolerable. 
He  had  the  society  of  Judge  Story  in  the  same  house, 
many  friends  and  admirers,  and  plenty  to  do ;  but  it  was 
not  a  sufficient  substitute  for  his  old  life. 

Of  the  contingencies  on  which  his  retirement  de 
pended,  one  was  quickly  disposed  of.  His  brother  was 
not  elected  to  Congress,  and  while  addressing  a  jury 
in  the  court  room  at  Concord,  New  Hampshire,  fell  dead 
of  heart  disease.  Webster  was  now  more  than  ever 
inclined  to  retire.  He  spent  part  of  that  summer  of 
1828  in  looking  after  the  affairs  of  his  deceased  brother. 
The  old  family  farm  in  New  Hampshire  now  became 
his.  He  was  attached  to  it  and  all  its  surroundings 
by  strong  sentiments ;  he  kept  the  farm  going  for  the 
rest  of  his  life  under  a  favorite  overseer,  John  Taylor; 
and  in  spite  of  the  more  varied  and  superior  attractions 
of  Marshfield  he  often  visited  this  country  place  number 
two  to  enjoy  the  sight  of  his  cattle,  the  invigorating 
climate,  and  the  beautiful  interval  land  along  the  river 
backed  by  the  distant  mountains. 

There  seemed  little  left  to  draw  him  back  to  Wash 
ington.  But  in  the  autumn  of  that  year^_i82gz  going 
to  New  York  on  professional  business,  he  made  the 
acquaintance  of  Miss  Caroline  Le  Roy,  and  was  mar 
ried  to  her  in  December.  They  had  no  children. 
She  was  no  doubt  correctly  described  by  her  hus 
band  as  "  amiable  and  affectionate,  prudent  and  agree 
able."  Quite  a  number  of  her  letters  are  printed 
in  Mr.  Van  Tyne's  collection.  She  had  had  a  great 
deal  more  experience  than  the  first  wife  of  social 
and  fashionable  life  and  probably  was  more  apprecia 
tive  of  the  position  given  her  by  her  husband's  fame 

230 


f 


I   I 


MRS.    CAROLINE    LE  ROY    WEBSTER 


REMARRIAGE 

I 

and  popularity.  Some  of  her  letters  in  the  National 
Edition  of  his  works  indicate  a  rather  bright  mind, 
capable  of  expressing  itself  with  point  and  even  wit. 
It  is  hard  to  think  of  him  choosing  any  other  sort  of 
woman  for  a  wife.  But  her  letters  have  not  the  serious 
ness  and  charm  of  those  of  the  first  home-loving  wife, 
occupied  with  the  children  and  with  only  a  passing 
interest  in  social  and  fashionable  affairs. 

Now  that  he  was  married  again  there  was  less  reason 
for  Webster's  retirement  from  politics,  and  he  went  to 
Washington  to  spend  what  proved  to  be  the  most  event 
ful  winter  of  his  life.  We  naturally  expect  to  find  him 
a  decided  opponent  of  the~Jack"son  administration.  He 
certainly  detested  the  Jacksonian  principle,  that  to  the 
victors  belong  the  spoils,  that  every  new  administration 
must  make  a  clean  sweep  of  all  the  subordinate  officers 
for  the  sake  of  rewarding  followers  and  dependents. 
He  felt  the  evils  of  it  in  Washington  as  he  watched 
Jackson  make  two  thousand  removals  from  Federal 
offices  in  two  years,  and  he  foresaw  the  injury  and 
demoralization  the  system  would  work  in  the  future. 
He  had  nothing  but  contempt  for  the  argument  that 
unless  the  offices  were  held  out  as  rewards  ordinary 
men  would  lose  interest  in  political  contests  and  would 
not  labor  for  the  success  of  even  meritorious  political 
opinions.  He  knew  the  contrary  to  be  the  fact  in  the 
forty  odd  years  of  his  life.  He  regretted  that  the  offices 
of  the  government  should  be  made  a  corruption  fund 
to  influence  votes  and  the  officeholders  corrupt  political 
workers  in  order  to  retain  their  positions.  He  saw  no  \ 
good  in  a  system  which  tended  to  make  public  patronage  • 
more  important  than  political  principle  in  the  eyes  of  the  ; 
ordinary  man. 

But  when  the  attempt  was  made  to  stop  Jackson's 
wholesale  removals, — on  the  ground  that,  as  the  Presi 
dent's  appointments  to  office  must  be  confirmed  by  the 
Senate,  he  had  no  right  to  remove  from  office  without 
the  same  sort  of  concurrence  of  the  Upper  House, — 

231 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

Webster  frankly  admitted  that  the  clause  of  the  Con 
stitution  could  not  be  stretched  so  far.  The  Constitu 
tion  provided  that  the  approval  of  the  Senate  was 
necessary  to  an  appointment  to  office,  but  was  silent 
about  removals.  The  question  thus  raised  had  not  in 
frequently  been  discussed,  and  the  argument  was  now 
made  by  the  opponents  of  Jackson,  that  the  power  to 
confirm  an  appointment  necessarily  included  the  power 
to  determine  the  length  of  the  appointment,  that  as  the 
Constitution  had  required  the  confirmation  of  the  Senate 
for  appointments,  it  must  have  intended  the  same  con 
firmation  for  removals,  and  that  the  President  could  not 
alone  terminate  an  appointment.  This  had  been  the 
opinion  of  Chancellor  Kent.  But  the  opinion  of  Madi 
son  had  been  contrary  and  so  had  the  practice  of  the 
government  for  half  a  century.  Webster  considered 
the  argument  against  Jackson  too  inferential  and  arti 
ficial  to  be  maintained  in  the  face  of  such  long  acquies 
cence  and  practice;  and  he  accordingly  would  take  no 
part  in  denying  Jackson's  constitutional  power  of 
removal. 


232 


X 

THE  GREAT  DEBATE  AND  THE  REPLY  TO  HAYNE 

THAT  curious  episode  in  the  history  of  the  United 
States  Senate,  the  Great  Debate,  lasted,  with  intervals 
for  other  business,  for  three  months,  from  the  ist  of 
January  until  the  2d  of  April,  and  again  for  a  few 
days  in  May  of  the  year  1830.  It  arose  on  a  resolution 
of  inquiry  offered  by  Senator  Foot,  of  Connecticut. 

"  That  the  Committee  on  Public  Lands  be  instructed  to 
inquire  into  the  expediency  of  limiting  for  a  certain  period  the 
sales  of  the  public  lands  to  such  lands  only  as  have  hereto 
fore  been  offered  for  sale  and  are  subject  to  entry  at  the 
minimum  price  ($1.25  per  acre).  And  also  whether  the  office 
of  Surveyor  General  may  not  be  abolished  without  detriment 
to  the  public  interest." 

Resolutions  of  inquiry  were  usually  passed  by  the 
Senate  without  debate  as  a  matter  of  course.  But  this 
resolution  suddenly  assumed  the  importance  of  a  great 
measure  of  public  policy  concealed  in  the  disguise  of 
inquiry,  and  was  debated  longer  and  more  intensely 
than  formal  bills  that  were  intended  to  become  laws. 

It  has  been  usual,  especially  in  biographies  of  Web 
ster,  to  say  that  the  resolution  was  an  innocent  inquiry 
which  had  nothing  to  do  with  nullification,  secession, 
and  other  wonderful  topics  which  were  lugged  in  in  a 
very  irregular  way  under  its  heading.  But  if  we  dis 
pose  of  it  in  this  brief  manner,  we  miss  the  real  situation 
of  the  time  and  the  actual  position  and  conduct  of  Web 
ster.  TJnder  the  circumstances .  of  the  times  the  resolu 
tion  was  a  fire-brand  which  lit  tip  the  passions  and 
politics  of  nearly  two  generations.  It  was  not  an  unim 
portant  subject.  It  was  one  of  the  largest  subjects 
before  the  country.  The  hundreds  of  millions  of  acres 
of  wild  lands  in  the  Mississippi  Valley  and  the  best 

233 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

method  of  disposing  of  them  was  by  no  means  a  small 
subject.  Whether  they  should  pass  into  the  hands  o>f 
settlers  who  would  cultivate  them  or  into  the  hands  of 
speculators  who  would  merely  hold  them  for  a  rise  in 
price ;  whether  their  settlement  should  be  encouraged, 
even  if  it  drained  off  population  and  weakened  the 
Eastern  States ;  whether  they  should  be  given  away 
for  nothing  in  order  to  encourage  settlement,  or  whether 
they  should  be  sold  for  a  price;  whether  they  should 
be  given  to  the  individual  States ;  or,  if  sold,  what  should 
be  done  with  the  proceeds,  were  momentous  questions, 
questions  which  concerned  the  future  development  and 
greatness  of  the  Union  and  the  character  of  its  popula 
tion.  Such  questions  had  been  frequently  before  Con 
gress.  Such  questions  included  the  great  subject  of 
internal  improvements,  which  was  connected  with  the 
public  lands  because  the  people  of  the  West  looked  to 
Congress  for  such  improvements  of  their  waterways  and 
highways  as  would  help  in  developing  their  land.  The 
protective  tariff  was  part  of  the  public  lands  question, 
because  manufacturing  industries  in  the  East  were  sup 
posed  to  keep  people  from  emigrating  to  the  West.  The 
question  of  slavery  was  connected  with  the  public  lands 
because  there  was  a  serious  difference  of  opinion 
whether  the  new  territories  in  the  West  should  be  slave 
or  free. 

The  public  lands  had  been  a  problem  even  in  colonial 
times ;  but  a  comparatively  easy  one,  because,  with  the 
exception  of  the  lands  sold  by  proprietary  provinces  like 
Pennsylvania,  the  policy  of  the  British  Government  had 
been  to  give  the  land  away  quite  liberally  for  the  sake 
of  encouraging  settlement.  This  was  also  the  policy 
of  other  European  countries  that  had  colonies  and  de 
pendencies.  But  when  the  United  States  was  formed 
under  the  Constitution  the  States  that  had  acquired 
wild  lands  in  the  West  under  their  old  charters  which 
extended  from  sea  to  sea,  gave  these  lands  to  the  Gen 
eral  Government  to  be  sold  and  the  proceeds  retained 

234 


THE  GREAT  DEBATE 

as  a  general  fund  for  the  benefit  of  all  the  States.  These 
lands  had,  accordingly,  been  regarded  as  a  trust  for  the 
benefit  of  the  whole  country ;  a  system  for  their  survey 
and  sale  had  been  adopted ;  and  about  four  hundred  acts 
of  Congress  had  been  passed  to  encourage  their  sale  and 
settlement.  Indeed,  fully  half  the  business  before  Con 
gress  had  heretofore  been  made  up  of  land  bills. 

The  system  adopted  had  been  to  offer  the  lands  at 
public  sale  to  the  highest  bidder ;  and  if  not  bought  they 
could  be  purchased  at  private  sale  by  anybody  for  $2 
per  acre,  reduced  to  $1.25  in  1820.  This  was  a  good 
system  in  its  way ;  though  perhaps  not  equal  to  the  pre 
emption  and  homestead  system  which  we  have  known  in 
our  time,  and  which  began  in  1862.  We  had  to  develop 
a  land  system  by  years  of  experience  and  trial  just  as 
the  sub-treasury  plan  and  the  system  of  national  banks 
finally  superseded  the  crudeness  of  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States  and  the  pet  bank  scheme  of  Jackson's 
time. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  defects  of  the  old  land 
system,  the  wonderfully  flourishing  community  of  Ohio 
had  grown  up  under  it ;  and  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  Mis 
souri,  Indiana  and  Illinois  were  coming  on  with  such 
strides  that  the  West  was  spoken  of  as  the  little  giant. 
It  had  already,  by  combining  with  the  Northeast,  decided 
the  Presidential  election  of  John  Quincy  Adams,  and 
now,  by  combining  with  the  South,  it  had  elevated  to  the 
Presidency  one  of  its  own  men,  the  redoubtable  General 
Jackson. 

The  people  of  the  old  Northeastern  States  thought 
that  the  West  was  quite  successful.  But  some  of  the 
westerners  themselves,  especially  Senator  Kane  and 
Senator  Benton,  were  inclined  to  think  that  some  im 
provements  could  be  made  in  the  land  laws.  The  lands, 
for  example,  might  be  given  for  nothing  to  poor  but 
industrious  settlers,  who  would  at  once  go  to  cultivating 
them.  A  man  who  had  gone  out  on  wild  vacant  public 
land  and  begun  to  cultivate  a  patch  of  it,  "  squatted  "  on 

235 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

it  as  the  slang  phrase  was,  should  be  given  a  pre-emption 
or  first  right  to  buy  that  land  from  the  government  at 
the  minimum  price  instead  of  being  treated  as  a  tres 
passer  and  a  criminal.  Refuse  lands  which  had  long 
remained  unsold  at  the  minimum  price  of  $1.25  per  acre 
should  have  the  price  annually  reduced  25  cents  per 
acre,  until  the  price  fell  to  25  cents. 

Some  of  these  ideas  had  been  put  in  the  form  of  bills 
and  offered  in  Congress  at  various  times  for  some  years  \ 
and  some  thirty  years  afterwards  the  right  of  pre 
emption  was  allowed  the  squatters  under  the  modern 
homestead  system.  Two  such  measures  were  now  be 
fore  the  Senate.  One  was  a  pre-emption  bill  to  allow 
squatters  the  first  right  to  buy.  Thousands  of  these 
squatters  were  now,  it  was  said,  occupying  public  lands 
far  beyond  any  surveys ;  they  were  meritorious,  hardy 
pioneers  of  civilization  who  risked  themselves  among 
the  Indians,  and  should  be  assisted  to  obtain  the  homes 
for  which  they  had  fought.  But  some  said  that  a  pre 
emption  law  would  merely  encourage  intruders  and 
trespassers  to  enter  all  the  best  lands  and  obtain  them 
at  the  minimum  price ;  and  that  it  was  inadvisable  to 
encourage  squatters  to  go  out  beyond  the  surveys,  be 
cause  they  intruded  on  Indian  land,  caused  war  and 
massacre  of  innocent  women  and  children,  and  expense 
to  the  government. 

Another  land  measure  before  the  Senate  was  what 
was  called  a  graduation  bill,  introduced  by  Benton,  to 
reduce  annually  the  price  of  the  refuse  inferior  lands 
that  could  not  be  sold  at  $1.25  per  acre.  To  Kane  and 
Benton  the  Foot  resolution  seemed  to  have  been  intro-- 
duced  for  the  purpose  of  anticipating  and  forestalling 
these  measures  of  pre-emption  and  graduation;  and 
Benton  said  that  a  New  England  newspaper  contained 
a  letter  giving  that  as  the  purpose  of  the  Foot  reso 
lution. 

Since  the  year  1803,  the  date  of  the  purchase  of  the 
great  Louisiana  territory  which  included  most  of  the 
region  west  of  the  Mississippi,  the  public  land  question 

236 


THE  GREAT  DEBATE 

had  loomed  into  still  vaster  proportions.  That  enor 
mous  region  was  as  yet  hardly  peopled  at  all;  but  its 
possibilities  inflamed  every  imagination.  Should  it  be 
slave  or  free,  for  example  ?  Would  the  protective  tariff 
benefit  or  injure  it?  Should  the  government  extend 
to  it  the  doctrine  of  internal  improvements?  As  it  was 
purchased  by  the  common  funds,  must  it  not  be  held  like 
the  rest  of  the  public  land  for  the  common  benefit  of  all 
the  States? 

Senator  Benton  was  quite  fanatical  in  his  belief  that 
New  England  and  the  Middle  States  were  jealous  of 
the  West  and  inclined  to  check  its  growth  to  prevent 
their  own  population  from  migrating  westward;  and, 
although  this  is  derided  as  an  absurdity  in  biographies 
of  Webster  and  even  in  histories,  yet  there  is  no  doubt 
that  the  people  of  the  Northeast  felt  uneasy  about  the 
loss  of  their  population  and  talked  and  complained 
about  it.  Benton  was  very  bitter  in  denouncing  this 
New  England  feeling,  and  in  going  all  lengths  to 
exaggerate  it  and  show  that  it  had  almost  ruined  the 
West  and  would  in  the  end  deliver  up  large  portions 
of  it  to  the  dominion  of  wild  beasts.  As  proof  of  the 
existence  of  the  feeling,  he  quoted  with  great  delight  a 
letter  written  in  1813  by  John  Quincy  Adams  and  pub 
lished  in  the  Boston  Sentinel  of  April  18,  1827 : 

"  I  am  not  displeased  to  hear  that  Ohio,  Kentucky,  Indiana, 
Louisiana  are  rapidly  peopling  with  Yankees.  I  consider  them 
as  an  excellent  race  of  people,  and  as  far  as  I  am  able  to  judge, 
I  believe  that  their  moral  and  political  character,  far  from 
degenerating,  improves  by  emigration.  I  have  always  felt,  on 
that  account,  a  sort  of  predilection  for  those  rising  western 
States ;  and  have  seen  with  no  small  astonishment  the  prejudices 
harbored  against  them.  .  .  . 

"  If  New  England  loses  her  influence  in  the  councils  of 
the  Union,  it  will  not  be  owing  to  any  dissemination  of  her 
population,  occasioned  by  these  emigrations ;  it  will  be  from 
the  partial,  sectarian,  or  as  Hamilton  called  it,  clannish  spirit, 
which  makes  so  many  of  her  political  leaders  jealous  and 
envious  of  the  West  and  South." 

Such  a  letter  coming  from  a  New  Englander  was  a 
valuable  piece  of  evidence :  and  further  instances  of 

237 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

hostility  were  accumulated  by  Benton  with  an  animosity 
and  a  stirring  up  of  sectional  feeling  that  probably 
injured  rather  than  helped  the  land  measures  of  the 
West.  But  he  was  arousing  this  hostility,  apparently, 
for  the  purpose  of  breaking  up  any  political  alliance  or 
coalition  between  the  Northeast  and  the  West.  His 
great  object  was  to  show  that  the  South  had  always 
been  friendly  to  the  West  and  to  ally  the  West  with  the 
South. 

New  England,  he  said,  at  the  time  of  the  Revolution, 
in  order  to  obtain  the  assistance  of  Spain  against  Eng 
land,  had  been  willing  to  abandon  the  right  to  the  free 
navigation  of  the  Mississippi  River,  if  the  alliance  of 
Spain  could  be  obtained  in  no  other  way.  This  was 
rather  far-fetched,  as  an  instance  of  hostility,  because 
New  England  was  trying  to  make  the  best  bargain 
possible  in  order  to  win  independence  from  England  at 
a  time  when  the  patriot  cause  had  sunk  very  low  and  was 
believed  by  some  to  be  hopeless.  New  England  was 
willing  to  surrender  the  navigation  for  a  period  of 
twenty-five  years  for  a  valuable  consideration ;  and 
Spain  by  assenting  to  such  an  arrangement  and  holding 
by  our  permission  would  be  acknowledging  our  ultimate 
right.  In  fact,  northern  Senators  completely  headed  off 
this  argument  of  Benton's  by  showing  that  the  South 
had  in  this  respect  been  still  more  hostile  than  New 
England  towards  the  West;  for  when  suffering  from 
British  invasion  and  conquest  the  South  had  been  will 
ing  to  surrender  the  entire  right  to  the  Mississippi  for 
the  sake  of  Spain's  assistance.  But  the  whole  notion 
was  absurd;  for  neither  New  England  nor  the  South 
had  had  in  mind  any  real  desire  to  injure  the  West. 

Another  New  England  offence  was  that  she  had 
introduced  the  regulation  which  required  the  old  town 
ships  of  public  land  to  be  sold  out  completely  before 
the  subsequent  ones  could  be  offered  for  sale.  But 
this  was  intended  to  benefit  the  West;  have  its  settle 
ment  advance  solidly,  and  prevent  the  settlers  straggling 

238 


THE  GREAT  DEBATE 

too  far  out  among  the  hostile  Indians.  It  was  an  old 
policy  adopted  in  colonial  times,  had  been  found  to 
work  well  in  New  England  and  in  Ohio ;  and,  as  Senator 
Sprague  showed,  had  originated  in  the  South  rather 
than  in  New  England,  and  was  advocated  by  Wash 
ington. 

New  England,  it  was  said,  had  also  introduced  the 
regulation  of  not  selling  less  than  640  acres  together. 
This  was  a  small  matter  to  make  such  a  fuss  over; 
and  the  minimum  number  of  acres  was  afterwards 
reduced.  But  New  England's  crimes  continued.  She 
had  voted  against  reducing  the  price  of  land  from  one 
dollar  to  sixty-two  and  two-thirds  cents  per  acre;  and 
she  had  opposed  detaching  troops  in  1786  to  the  pro 
tection  of  the  western  settlers  in  Kentucky.  In  the 
vote  on  sending  troops  in  1786  it  seems,  however,  that 
Massachusetts  alone  had  voted  against  sending  them. 
Connecticut  was  absent  and  Rhode  Island,  New  Hamp 
shire  and  the  Middle  States  had  voted  to  send  the 
troops.  It  was  a  serious  matter  sending  troops  to  Ken 
tucky  immediately  after  the  Revolution;  and  in  all  the 
voting  on  the  question  Senator  Sprague  showed  that  one 
section  of  the  country  was  not  any  more  against  it 
than  another;  and  as  a  mater  of  fact,  the  troops  were 
voted  in  the  end. 

Benton  scraped  and  raked  everywhere  through  the 
records  to  find  cause  of  offence;  and  his  views  were 
very  extreme.  New  England  had  refused  to  treat  for 
a  cession  of  Indian  lands  on  the  Ohio ;  she  had  opposed 
the  Louisiana  purchase ;  she  had  opposed  the  admission 
of  Louisiana  as  a  State  and  also  the  admission  of  Mis 
sissippi  and  of  Missouri;  and  she  had  given  no  assist 
ance  in  the  War  of  1812  against  British  invasion  which 
had  been  so  disastrous  to  the  West. 

In  voting  for  the  Louisiana  purchase  four  New  Eng- 
landers  were  in  favor  of  it,  and  as  it  required  a  two- 
thirds  vote,  could  have  defeated  it.  To  charge  New 
England  or  the  Northeast,  as  Benton  did,  with  a  desire 

239 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

"  to  cripple  and  strangle  the  West,"  because  some  New 
Englanclers  voted  against  the  Louisiana  purchase,  was 
a  mere  making  up  of  a  case.  There  were  honest  doubts 
as  to  the  constitutionality  of  the  Louisiana  purchase  and 
honest  doubts  as  to  the  advisability  of  admitting  Louisi 
ana  as  a  State.  Jefferson  himself  had  such  doubts. 
The  enlargement  of  our  territory,  especially  the  addition 
of  slave  territory,  might  endanger  the  Union;  and  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  it  did;  arid  the  sudden  incorporation 
of  a  foreign  population  like  that  at  New  Orleans  was  a 
new  and  serious  condition. 

The  admission  of  Mississippi  was  the  admission  of 
more  slave  territory.  The  admission  was  not,  it  seems, 
seriously  opposed;  but  in  some  of  its  stages  distin 
guished  southerners,  as  well  as  New  Englanders,  voted 
against  it.  In  the  case  of  Missouri,  the  opposition  to 
its  admission  was  distinctly  because  it  was  to  come  in 
as  a  slave  State,  extending  slavery  still  farther  north. 
Those  who  voted  against  its  admission  were  voting  to 
save  the  West  from  what  the  westerners  themselves 
admitted  to  be  a  curse ;  and  the  members  of  Congress 
from  the  Northwest  voted  against  the  slavery  clause. 

Benton's  attempt  was  obviously  very  strained,  be 
cause  the  West  had  grown  and  prospered.  New  Eng 
landers  had  poured  into  it  and  largely  built  up  its 
prosperity.  Ohio,  in  fact,  was  almost  a  New  England 
community.  Of  the  thirteen  original  States  nine  were 
north  of  the  Potomac.  By  their  votes  and  influence  in 
Congress  they  could  have  ruined  the  West,  sealed  up 
the  Mississippi,  and  refused  to  receive  western  States 
into  the  Union.  They  did  exactly  the  reverse.  "  Even 
the  five  New  England  States,"  said  Senator  Sprague, 
"  constituting  as  they  did  more  than  one-third  of  the 
whole  number,  might  forever  have  excluded  Louisiana 
and  Florida,  and  have  rejected  every  treaty  for  enlarg 
ing  or  confirming  the  privileges  of  the  West"  But 
instead  of  that  they  nourished  and  sustained  the  West, 
accepted  it  as  a  part  of  themselves  and  part  of  the  Union, 

240 


THE  GREAT  DEBATE 

until  from  being  more  than  two-thirds  the  North  had 
now  become  a  minority. 

It  also  suited  Benton's  purpose  to  say  that  since 
1825,  when  the  West  had  joined  the  Northeast  in  elect 
ing  a  New  England  man  to  the  Presidency,  New  Eng 
land  had  been  very  favorably  disposed  towards  the 
West,  had,  in  fact,  courted  the  West  in  the  hope  of 
making  the  alliance  perpetual. 

These  arguments  on  both  sides  anticipate  somewhat 
the  debate,  but  their  statement  seems  necessary  to  show 
the  conditions  amidst  which  Foot  introduced  his  so- 
called  innocent  resolution.  If  there  had  been  no  Benton 
in  the  Senate,  the  resolution  might  have  been  passed 
without  much  trouble,  and  the  famous  debate  never  have 
occurred;  for  Kane's  attack  upon  the  resolution  was 
comparatively  mild.  But  Benton  assailed  it  in  long  and 
vehement  speeches.  Though  worded  in  the  form  of  an 
inquiry,  it  seemed  to  him  to  imply  that  there  should  be 
some  stoppage  of  the  sale  of  public  lands  and  a  dis 
couragement  to  emigration;  for  emigrants,  he  said, 
would  not  start  when  they  heard  that  the  sale  of  lands 
might  be  cut  off  and  the  office  of  Surveyor  General  pos 
sibly  abolished.  He  denounced  it  as  a  mere  New 
England  trick  to  checkmate  "  my  graduation  bill,"  as 
he  called  it,  and  to  stop  migration  and  keep  laboring 
people  in  the  East  to  work  in  the  mills  created  by  the 
accursed  protective  tariff. 

The  Senators  from  New  England  and  the  Middle 
States  were  for  the  most  part  opposed  to  Benton's 
graduation  bill  and  apparently  for  the  reason  that  it 
was  a  mere  tampering  and  tinkering  with  the  land 
system  in  a  small  way  without  going  far  enough  to 
accomplish  any  substantial  improvement.  They  would 
have  preferred  some  method  of  getting  rid  of  the  specu 
lators  who  were  usually  the  only  buyers  at  sales  of  the 
public  lands.  In  fact,  a  great  company  had  been  formed 
for  buying  at  these  sales ;  and  the  graduation  bill 
would  not  interfere  with  speculators.  The  bill,  more- 
16  241 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

over,  provided  for  giving  to  the  States  in  which  they  lay 
the  lands  that  could  not  in  five  years  be  sold  at  the 
reduced  prices.1  This  was  quite  contrary  to  the  long- 
established  principles  of  the  land  system,  and  some 
Senators  held  that  Congress  had  not  the  constitutional 
power  to  give  away  to  a  State  the  land  or  property 
that  was  held  in  trust  for  the  whole  Union. 

Senator  Foot's  ideas  as  disclosed  in  a  speech  he 
made  at  the  close  of  the  debate  were  that  only  half  the 
land  that  had  ever  been  sold  by  the  Government  was  in 
the  hands  of  actual  settlers;  the  other  half  was  in  the 
hands  of  the  speculators ;  that  more  lands  had  been  sur 
veyed  and  were  on  the  market  than  would  be  sold  iry 
many  years  to  come  at  the  usual  rate  of  less  than  a 
million  acres  per  year;  and  that  the  commissio>ner  of 
the  land  office  had  recommended  that  the  number  of  sur 
veyors  and  land  offices  be  reduced.  The  limitation  of 
sales,  Foot  said,  would  discourage  only  speculators^not 
actual  settlers.  He  believed  in  the  regular  methodical 
system  by  which  Ohio  had  been  settled  and  had  become 
such  a  marvel  of  progress.  This  was  the  New  Eng 
land  method  of  advancing  into  the  wilderness  township 
by  township,  each  township  sold,  settled,  and  com 
pletely  self-defensive  before  the  next  one  was  started ; 
no  straggling  of  squatters  far  ahead  to  cause  Indian 
wars  and  massacres. 

In  order  to  make  his  resolution  more  palatable  to 
Benton  and  some  others,  Foot  amended  it  by  adding  the 
words,  "  or  whether  it  be  expedient  to  adopt  measures 
to  hasten  the  sales  and  extend  more  rapidly  the  surveys 
of  the  public  lands."  But  it  was  of  no  use,  and  the 
whole  resolution  was  denounced  by  Benton  as  just  as 
much  of  an  attack  upon  the  West  as  ever. 

The  country  was  divided  at  that  time  by  geography 
and  the  conditions  of  transportation  and  trade  into 
three  distinct  divisions  more  at  variance  than  any 

1  Gales  and  Seaton's  Debates,  ist  Sess.  2ist  Congress,  vol. 
vi,  p.  413- 

242 


THE  GREAT  DEBATE 

divisions  in  our  time.  There  was,  first  of  all,  New 
England  and  the  Middle  States,  usually  spoken  of  in  the 
debates  as  the  Northeast,  which  were  free  from  slavery 
and  hated  slavery,  devoted  to  the  tariff,  and  prospering 
under  it.  Then  there  was  the  South  suffering,  as  it 
believed,  great  loss  of  money  every  day  from  the  work 
ing  of  the  tariff  and  devoted  to  slavery  as  a  profitable 
institution.  Third,  was  the  West  almost  entirely  iso 
lated  from  the  Northeast  and  even  from  the  South, 
because  there  were  no  railways  across  the  Alleghany 
Mountains.  No  products  of  the  West  could  come 
east  because  it  was  up  stream  by  water  and  over  hills 
by  land.  The  only  possible  and  profitable  outlet  for 
western  products  was  to  float  them  down  the  streams 
that  flowed  into  the  Mississippi  and  down  that  stream 
to  New  Orleans. 

These  divisions  were  constantly  suggesting  the  ques 
tion  of  disunion ;  and  slavery,  though  not  so  serious  a 
problem  as  it  afterwards  became,  was  nevertheless  in 
every  one's  mind.  fThe  South  and  West  having  elected 
Jackson  President  were  full  of  confidence  and  inclined 
to  assume  an  air  of  arrogance.  The  South  felt  that 
she  had  broken  what  to  her  was  the  dangerous  alliance 
of  the  West  with  the  Northeast,  had  killed  the  coalition, 
or  bargain,  and  corruption  which  a  few  years  before  had 
elected  Adams.  She  was  jubilant;  she  expected  the 
West  would  assist  her  in  annulling  the  detested  pro 
tective  tariff.  The  West  on  her  part  was  equally  pleased 
and  hopeful;  for  she  expected  the  South  to  assist  her 
in  remodelling  the  public  land  system  and  in  obtaining 
more  immigrants  and  more  rapid  development.  Sena 
tor  Benton  and  Senator  Hayne,  of  South  Carolina,  sat 
near  each  other,  almost  with  their  arms  round  each 
other's  necks,  and  were  continually  exchanging  flatter 
ing  and  friendly  communications.  The  situation  was 
ripe  for  all  that  happened ;  every  one  had  a  chip  on  his 
shoulder;  and  it  would  have  been  still  more  exciting  if 
Calhoun  had  not  been  kept  out  of  the  debate.  As  Vice- 
President  and  presiding  officer  of  the  Senate  he  could 

243 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

only  listen  to  a  contest  into  which  he  must  have  longed 
to  enter. 

Accordingly,  when  on  the  iQth  of  January  Senator 
Hayne,  of  South  Carolina,  took  his  turn  to  speak  in 
the  Great  Debate,  he  went  one  step  farther  than  the 
others.  He  was  the  first  Senator  of  extreme  southern 
views  to  take  part;  and  his  speech  marks  an  epoch  in 
history.  But  would  it  ever  have  been  heard  of  without 
Webster's  reply? 

Hayne  criticized  quite  freely  the  whole  land  system 
of  the  government  and  made  a  strong  bid  for  the  favor 
of  the  West,  very  much  as  Benton  had  made  a  strong 
bid  for  the  favor  of  the  South.  The  debate  might  be 
described  as  the  wooing  debate.  In  fact,  Benton  sug 
gested  that  name  for  it.  The  Northeast  and  the  South 
were  wooing  the  fair  young  maid  of  the  West. 

Hayne  suggested  that  the  lands  should  have  been 
given  for  nothing  or  sold  at  much  lower  prices  to  the 
settlers ;  they  were  sold  high  so  as  to  keep  pauper  labor 
in  the  Northeast  for  the  manufacturing  under  the  pro 
tective  tariff;  the  public  lands  properly  belonged  to 
the  western  people  who  risked  themselves  in  the  wil 
derness;  the  National  Government  had  no  moral  right 
to  make  money  out  of  the  lands  and  grow  rich;  the 
revenue  thus  accumulated  would  become  a  mere  corrup 
tion  fund,  and,  worse  still,  would  tend  to  consolidate 
the  government. 

"  Sir,  an  immense  national  treasury  would  be  a  fund  for 
corruption.  It  would  enable  Congress  and  the  executive  to 
exercise  a  control  over  States,  as  well  as  over  great  interests 
in  the  country,  nay  even  over  corporations  and  individuals — 
utterly  destructive  of  the  purity  and  fatal  to  the  duration  of 
our  institutions.  It  would  be  equally  fatal  to  the  sovereignty 
and  independence  of  the  States.  Sir,  I  am  one  of  those  who 
believe  that  the  very  life  of  our  system  is  the  independence  of 
the  States,  and  that  there  is  no  evil  more  to  be  deprecated  than 
the  consolidation  of  this  government."  (Gales  and  Seaton's 
Debates  in  Congress,  vol.  vi,  Part  I,  p.  34.) 

This,  with  a  few  sentences  that  led  up  to  it  and  fol 
lowed  it,  was  all  he  said  that  was  in  any  way  different 

244 


THE  REPLY  TO  HAYNE 

from  what  had  been  said  by  western  Senators.  But  he 
made  all  his  points  with  much  skill;  for  he  was  an 
excellent  speaker  who  could  hold  with  a  chain  of  reason 
ing  the  attention  of  any  audience. 

He  was  one  of  the  men  of  bright  mind  and  liberal 
associations  that  South  Carolina  then  produced.  He 
had  stepped  into  an  extensive  law  practice  when  he  was 
barely  twenty-one.  He  was  accustomed  to  the  wealth 
and  social  ease  of  Charleston  life  and  to  the  practical 
interests  and  broadening  influences  of  the  plantation 
aristocracy.  It  was  the  great  period  of  the  Caro 
linians  and  he  was  one  of  the  best  of  them;  not  so 
comprehensive  and  intellectual  as  the  Scotch-Irishman, 
Calhoun,  but  of  an  equally  attractive  personality.  His 
speeches  do  not,  of  course,  read  anything  like  as  well 
as  Webster's.  But  they  were  better  in  their  delivery 
than  in  print,  because  his  manner  was  alert  and  prompt 
and  his  personality  vivacious  and  captivating.  Though 
much  younger  than  Webster,  he  had  been  longer  in  the 
Senate.  Webster  seems  to  have  had  a  good  deal  of 
regard  for  him,  and  in  a  letter  written  many  years 
after  this  debate  speaks  of  his  talents  and  integrity  in 
high  terms.2  Acording  to  the  testimony  collected  by 
his  recent  biographer  Hayne  had  quite  a  reputation  as 
a  debater  and  an  orator  in  the  North  as  well  as  in  the 
South. 

Webster  had  been  much  occupied  in  the  Supreme 
Court  during  this  first  half  of  the  month  of  January,  and 
had  been  very  little  of  the  time  in  the  Senate.  He 
evidently  was  not  in  sympathy  with  Foot's  resolution. 
He  said  openly  that  the  resolution  was  unnecessary; 
but  as  a  New  England  man  he  did  not  feel  called  upon 
to  follow  Senator  Woodbury,  of  New  Hampshire,  in 
opposing  it.  In  the  afternoon  of  the  igth  of  January, 
however,  he  cnme  into  the  Senite  with  his  court  papers, 
as  he  says,  under  his  arm,  and  heard  Hayne's  speech. 
Though  he  had  not  heard  Benton's  speech  and  the 

"Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xvi,  p.  316. 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

speeches  of  the  others,  he  was  no  doubt  told  substantially 
all  that  they  had  said,  and  Benton's  hostile  attitude 
towards  New  England  was  well  known  in  the  Senate. 

Webster  saw  at  once  that  the  debate  was  going  very 
strongly  against  his  party ;  that  New  England  was  being 
put  in  a  most  unpopular  position  before  the  whole 
country,  and  that  the  Foot  resolution  should  never  have 
been  offered.  What  was  the  use  of  irritating  the  West 
by  such  a  resolution  at  a  time  when  the  obvious  policy 
was  to  ally  the  West  with  New  England?  The  resolu 
tion  was  accomplishing  nothing  except  to  bring  before 
the  public  all  the  supposed  instances  of  the  Northeast's 
jealousy  and  prejudice  against  the  West  that  the  indus 
try  of  Benton  and  Hayne  could  collect. 

His  own  duty  was  clear.  He  would  be  expected 
to  defend  New  England.  He  must  do  his  best  and 
show  instances  of  her  favorable  regard  for  the  West. 
So  the  next  day  he  made  a  speech  on  these  lines ;  and 
to  get  rid  of  Foot's  resolution  as  soon  as  possible,  he 
moved  that  it  be  indefinitely  postponed. 

In  this  speech  on  the  2Oth,  now  known  as  his  First 
Reply  to  Hayne,  he  showed  that  the  General  Govern 
ment  had  spent  millions  of  dollars  in  extinguishing  the 
Indian  title  to  the  western  lands,  that  armies  had  been 
sent  and  expensive  wars  waged  to  protect  the  settlers 
from  the  Indians.  He  called  to  mind  the  campaigns 
of  Harmar  and  of  St.  Clair,  and  the  final  campaign 
of  Wayne,  in  1794,  by  which,  for  the  first  time,  the 
country  northwest  of  the  Ohio  was  rendered  safe  for 
settlement.  In  glowing  terms  he  described  the  marvel 
lous  growth  of  the  State  of  Ohio  since  that  year  1794. 
Ohio  was  the  wonder  of  development  of  the  age.  Could 
the  land  system  of  the  government  which  had  accom 
plished  such  results,  he  asked,  be  accused  of  meanness 
or  jealousy? 

All  this  was  undoubtedly  true,  and  it  was  stated  in 
language  which  is  still  a  delight  to  read.  He  showed 
that  the  public  land  east  of  the  Mississippi  was  a  gift 

246 


THE  REPLY  TO  HAYNE 

from  the  States  to  the  General  Government  in  trust  to 
sell  for  the  benefit  of  all.  It  could  not  be  given  away ; 
if  sold  cheap  in  large  quantities  it  would  pass  into  the 
hands  of  speculators;  the  rapid  growth  of  the  whole 
West  was  proof  of  the  beneficence  of  the  land  system 
and  the  friendly  feeling  of  the  rest  of  the  country  for 
the  West. 

Hayne  had  opposed  the  land  system  because  it 
tended  to  make  the  government  rich,  to  give  it  a  per 
manent  fund,  and  that  meant  consolidation.  He  wished 
to  see  the  time  when  the  government  should  not  possess 
a  shilling  of  permanent  revenue.  If  he  could  speak  the 
magical  word,  he  had  said, 'and  by  that  word  convert 
the  whole  capitol  into  gold,  that  word  would  not  be 
spoken.  In  this  sense  th*e  public  debt  was  also  an  evil. 
It  should  be  paid  off  and  extinguished  completely  as 
soon  as  possible,  because  to  have  it  or  increase  it  also 
tended  to  consolidation. 

This  was  the  basis,  the  first  principle  of  the  nullifica 
tion  or  secession  argument,  the  assumption  that  the 
consolidation  of  the  American  States  into  a  united 
national  government  is  an  admitted  evil,  because  it 
will  impair  the  free  action  of  the  individual  States  and 
prevent  them  resisting  or  annulling  laws  of  the  Gen 
eral  Government  that  were  injuring  their  interests. 

In  this,  his  first  reply,  Webster  answered  that 
assumption  and  went  no  further.  Consolidation,  he 
said,  meant  no  more  than  the  strengthening  of  the 
Union ;  and  "  no  doubt  the  public  lands  and  everything 
else  in  which  we  have  a  common  interest  tend  to  con 
solidation,  and  to  this  species  of  consolidation  every 
true  American  ought  to  be  attached.  This  is  the  sense 
in  which  the  framers  of  the  Constitution  use  the  word 
consolidation,  and  in  this  sense  I  adopt  and  cherish  it" 
They  tell  us  in  the  letter  submitting  the  Constitution 
to  the  consideration  of  the  country  that 

"In  all  our  deliberations  on  this  subject,  we  kept  steadily 
in  our  view  that  which  appears  to  us  the  greatest  interest  of 

247 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

every  true  American,  the  consolidation  of  our  Union,  in  which 
is  involved  our  prosperity,  felicity,  safety,  perhaps  our  national 
existence.  This  important  consideration,  seriously  and  deeply 
impressed  upon  our  minds,  led  each  State  in  the  convention 
to  be  less  rigid  on  points  of  inferior  magnitude  than  might 
otherwise  have  been  expected."  (Works,  Ed.  1851,  vol.  iii, 
p.  258.) 

These  two  brief  arguments,  one  by  Hayne  and  the 
other  by  Webster,  were  as  far  as  the  debate  was  carried 
for  the  moment  on  the  secession  question.  In  many  re 
spects  Webster's  .very  brief  reply  on  consolidation  is 
overwhelmingly  strong  and  has  never  been  improved 
upon.  It  lies  at  the  foundation  of  all. subsequent  argu 
ments  for  union.  The  framers  of  the  Constitution  pub 
licly  announced  that  the  instrument  was  intended  to 
effect  consolidation  of  the  Union,  that  consolidation 
was  necessary  to  national  existence,  and  the  States  in 
voting  to  adopt  the  Constitution  must  have  intended 
to  adopt  it  as  a  means  of  consolidation,  When  we  add 
to  this  that  the  old  articles  of  confederation  admittedly 
constituted  a  mere  league  of  the  States  from  which  any 
State  might  retire  when  it  pleased ;  that  this  was  found 
so  weak  a  form  of  government  that  it  was  useless ;  that 
the  Constitution  was  admittedly  framed  to  make  a 
stronger  government,  was  announced  by  its  framers  as 
a  consolidation  and  accepted  by  the  States  with  that 
notice,  it  is  logical  to  conclude  that  the  States  in  accept 
ing  the  new  instrument  did  not  intend  that  any  one  of 
them  had  the  legal  right  to  secede.  If  they  had  the 
right  to  secede,  what  was  the  use  of  a  new  form  of 
government  in  place  of  the  old  Articles  of  Confed 
eration? 

In  all  the  subsequent  twists  and  turns  of  this  debate 
and  also  of  the  debate  several  years  afterwards,  Webster 
frequently  harked  back  to  this  foundation  statement; 
and  it  still  remains  unmoved  and  unanswered  as  the 
argument  for  union  and  nationality. 

Next  he  took  up  the  attacks  upon  New  England, 
which,  he  said,  was  the  "  main  occasion  "  for  his  ad- 

248 


THE  REPLY  TO  HAYNE 

dressing  the  Senate.  This  was  the  difficult  part  of  his 
undertaking,  and  he  had  evidently  postponed  it  so  that 
he  could  first  lay  a  groundwork  for  the  favorable  re 
gard  of  his  audience.  He  had  done  this  with  his 
argument  aganst  nullification  and  by  showing  that  the 
General  Government  had  certainly  not  been  illiberal 
to  the  West.  He  must  now  say  something  that  would 
offset  the  effect  of  that  irritation  against  migration 
which  had  so  often  cropped  out  among  the  masses  in 
New  England. 

New  England  was  innocent,  he  said,  of  the  protec 
tive  tariff  of  which  the  West  complained.  The  tariff 
had  originally  been  carried  by  southern  votes ;  and 
New  England  simply  accepted  it  and  adapted  herself 
to  it.  New  England,  he  said,  had  given  to  the  West 
her  system  of  land  survey  which  prevented  litigation  and 
left  the  settler  in  peace  to  cultivate  the  soil ;  a  far  better 
method  than  the  southern  system  which  had  been  so 
productive  of  needless  litigation.  The  famous  ordi 
nance  of  1787  for  the  government  of  the  territory  north 
west  of  the  Ohio,  establishing  free  schools  and  prohibit 
ing  slavery  in  that  region,  and  under  which  that  vast 
territory  had  grown  so  rapidly  to  greatness,  had  been 
drafted  by  Nathan  Dane,  of  Massachusetts,  and  passed 
in  Congress  by  the  aid  of  Masachusetts  votes.  So  far 
from  being  hostile  to  the  West,  New  England  had  im 
poverished  herself  and  steadily  advocated  measures 
which  had  drained  off  her  own  population  to  people  the 
Mississippi  Valley.  There  was  not  one  measure  favor 
able  to  the  West  which  could  have  been  passed  without 
the  New  England  votes  in  its  favor. 

He  enlarged  with  great  eloquence  on  this.  He  gave 
as  instances  the  Cumberland  road  and  the  Portland 
Canal,  which  had  been  voted  to  the  West ;  and  this 
seems  to  have  been  true  enough.  In  the  distribution  of 
internal  improvements  the  West  had  been  given  her 
share. 

His  tribute  of  praise  to  Nathan  Dane,  as  the  author 
249 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

of  the  ordinance  of  1787  of  the  Northwest  Territory, 
was  a  striking  part  of  his  speech.  He  compared  Dane 
to  Solon  and  Lycurgus  and  rather  to  Dane's  advantage 
over  those  lawgivers  of  antiquity;  and  he  proudly 
declared  that  this  famous  Ordinance  for  the  Government 
of  the  Northwest  had  been  carried  in  Congress  by  New 
England  votes.  Here  he  unfortunately  overstepped  the 
mark;  and  Benton  was  quick  to  point  out  that  the 
famous  ordinance  was  first  reported  by  a  committee  of 
Congress  in  1784,  two  years  before  Dane  was  in  Con 
gress.  The  non-slavery  clause  of  it  was  moved  by  Mr. 
King,  of  New  York,  in  1785  ;  and  not  until  1786  was 
the  ordinance  approved  by  a  committee  of  which  Dane 
was  a  member;  and  when  finally  adopted  by  Congress 
it  was  carried  as  much  by  southern  as  by  northern 
votes.  Eight  States  were  present,  three  northern  and 
five  southern,  and  they  all  voted  for  it. 

Webster  afterwards  explained  this  by  saying  that  the 
ordinance  when  first  prepared  by  the  committee  was  in 
the  form  of  mere  resolutions,  and  that  Dane,  when  he 
was  put  on  the  second  committee,  arranged  these  reso 
lutions  in  the  final  form.  It  was,  he  said,  like  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  which  Jefferson  drew  up 
from  ideas  which  had  been  often  voted  and  resolved 
in  the  assemblies  and  other  popular  bodies  of  the 
country. 

Webster  was  very  good  at  these  escapes.  He  had 
not  been  a  quarter  of  a  century  at  the  bar  for  nothing. 
He  closed  by  quoting  from  a  speech  of  Mr.  McDuffie,  a 
member  of  Congress  from  South  Carolina,  who  in  1825 
had  complained  that  Webster  was  urging  the  building 
of  highways  to  the  West.  Such  roads,  McDufhe  had 
said,  were  very  injurious  to  the  South  because  they  im 
poverished  her  by  drawing  away  her  population  to  the 
West.  The  West  was  settling  fast  enough  without 
injuring  the  South  by  this  artificial  method  of  drawing 
away  her  people. 

This  was  a  good  point,  and  very  irritating  to  Hayne, 
250 


THE  REPLY  TO  HAYNE 

because  it  showed  that  the  South  had  complained  of  the 
drawing  away  of  her  population  just  about  as  much  as 
the  Northeast  had  complained.  It  had,  in  fact,  been  a 
universal  complaint  of  the  whole  Atlantic  seaboard. 
It  had  not  been  serious  in  any  effects  on  the  West ;  the 
people  migrated  westward  all  the  same ;  but  western 
politicians  like  Benton  worked  it  up  into  political  capital 
to  suit  their  purposes. 

As  soon  as  he  sat  down  Benton  rose,  and  in  a  very 
effective  speech  called  attention  to  the  mistakes  in  re 
gard  to  Nathan  Dane  and  the  votes  of  New  England, 
which  have  been  mentioned.  Webster,  in  closing,  had 
moved  that  the  Foot  resolution  be  indefinitely  postponed, 
and  Benton  in  high  delight  commented  on  this  as  a  con 
fession  of  weakness.  The  Senator  from  Massachu 
setts,  he  said,  is  accepting  my  ground  against  the 
resolution.  He  saw  that  it  would  ruin  his  party;  that 
the  South  and  Wrest  were  allied  against  it.  He  fears  to 
bring  it  to  a  direct  vote.  He  would  slip  it  aside  by 
a  postponement.  His  method  is  ingenious,  "  that  of 
starting  a  new  subject,  and  moving  the  indefinite  post 
ponement  of  the  impending  one." 

The  following  day,  January  21,  Senator  Chambers, 
of  Maryland,  a  great  friend  and  admirer  of  Webster, 
suggested  a  postponement  of  the  debate  because  Mr. 
Webster  had  engagements  in  the  Supreme  Court.  But 
Hayne  objected.  He  saw,  he  said,  the  gentleman  from 
Massachusetts  in  his  seat,  and  presumed  that  he  could 
make  arrangements  that  would  enable  him  to  be  present. 
He  was  unwilling  that  the  subject  should  be  postponed. 

"He  would  not  deny  that  some  things  had  fallen  from 
that  gentleman  which  rankled  here  (touching  his  breast)  from 
which  he  would  desire,  at  once,  to  relieve  himself.  The 
gentleman  had  discharged  his  fire  in  the  face  of  the  Senate. 
He  hoped  he  would  now  afford  him  the  opportunity  of  returning 
the  shot. 

"Mr.  Webster:  I  am  ready  to  receive  it.  Let  the  dis 
cussion  proceed." 

251 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

Benton  then  spoke  for  about  an  hour  in  continua 
tion  of  his  speech  of  the  day  before.  These  speeches 
by  Benton  gave  Hayne  time  to  prepare  himself ;  and  as 
soon  as  Benton  finished,  Hayne  began  a  very  elaborate 
speech,  and  the  ablest  he  had  ever  made;  in  many 
respects  one  of  the  most  telling  speeches  that  up  to  that 
time  had  been  delivered  in  the  Senate.  Though  so 
different  in  method  and  manner  from  those  of  Clay  and 
without  Clay's  peculiar  felicity  of  language,  it  yet  de 
serves  to  be  ranked  with  some  of  the  best  by  that 
distinguished  Kentucky  statesman.  We  can  measure 
the  quality  of  it  when  we  consider  that  it  roused  Web 
ster  as  no  speech  in  Congress  had  ever  roused  him 
before.  It  forced  him  to  a  defence  which  has  become  a 
classic. 

A  large  part  of  Hayne's  speech  was  composed  of 
what  may  be  called  local  hits,  clear  enough  to  the  people 
of  that  day,  but  which  now  require  an  explanation.  For 
this  reason,  and  because  of  some  ugly  statements,  very 
unpleasant  for  many  years  to  northern  ears,  it  has  been 
the  custom  in  describing  the  debate  to  confine  quota 
tions  to  Webster's  reply.  But  the  events  of  secession 
are  now  far  enough  in  the  past  for  a  more  liberal  view 
and  for  as  fair  an  analysis  of  Hayne's  argument  as  it  is 
possible  for  a  northerner  to  make. 

Hayne's  first  object  was  to  try  to  connect  Webster 
with  the  old  "  bargain  and  corruption,"  the  turning  over 
of  the  Clay  electoral  votes  to  be  added  to  those  of 
John  Quincy  Adams,  and  make  him  President  in  ex 
change  for  the  Secretaryship  of  State  for  Clay,  and  per 
petual  distribution  of  the  Presidency  and  honors  between 
the  Northeast  and  the  West.  To  connect  a  statesman's 
name  with  the  old  "  bargain  and  corruption  "  supersti 
tion,  the  coalition,  as  it  was  called  in  polite  language, 
was,  in  those  days,  as  already  explained,  one  of  the 
most  effective  smirches  that  could  be  given. 

Hayne  began  by  complaining  that  Webster  had 
attacked  him  as  making  charges  of  New  England's 

252 


THE  REPLY  TO  HAYNE 

hostility  to  the  West,  when,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  those 
charges  had  been  made  principally  by  Senator  Ben  ton. 

"  Why  is  this  ?  Has  the  gentleman  discovered  in  former 
controversies  -with  the  gentleman  from  Missouri  that  he  is 
overmatched  by  that  gentleman?  And  does  he  hope  for  an 
easy  victory  over  a  more  feeble  adversary?  Has  the  gentle 
man's  distempered  fancy  been  disturbed  by  gloomy  forebodings 
of  new  alliances  to  be  founded  at  which  he  hinted?  Has  the 
ghost  of  the  murdered  coalition  come  back  like  the  ghost  of 
the  murdered  Banquo,  to  '  sear  the  eyeballs '  of  the  gentleman 
and  will  not  'down  at  his  bidding?'  Are  dark  visions  of 
broken  hopes  and  honors  lost  forever,  still  floating  before  his 
heated  imagination?  Sir,  if  it  be  his  object  to  thrust  me 
between  the  gentleman  from  Missouri  and  himself  in  order  to 
rescue  the  East  from  the  contest  it  has  provoked  with  the 
West,  he  shall  not  be  gratified.  Sir,  I  will  not  be  dragged 
into  the  defence  of  my  friend  from  Missouri.  The  South 
shall  not  be  forced  into  a  conflict  not  its  own.  The  gentleman 
from  Missouri  is  able  to  fight  his  own  battles.  The  gallant 
West  needs  no  aid  from  the  South  to  repel  any  attack  which 
may  be  made  on  them  from  any  quarter.  Let  the  gentleman 
from  Massachusetts  controvert  the  facts  and  arguments  of  the 
gentleman  from  Missouri — if  he  can ;  and  if  he  win  the  victory, 
let  him  wear  its  honors.  I  shall  not  deprive  him  of  his 
laurels." 

This  was  to  make  it  appear  that  Webster's  ambition  • 
for  the  Presidency  or  other  high  office  in  the  govern 
ment  had  led  him  into  the  "  bargain  and  corruption," 
and  now  that  the  bargain  or  coalition  had  been  killed 
or  murdered  by  the  alliance  of  the  West  with  the 
South  and  the  election  of  Jackson,  Webster  was  going 
about  as  a  disappointed  man,  constantly  haunted  by 
the  ghost  of  the  murdered  coalition.  Therefore,  he 
dared  not  attack  Benton,  who  was  one  of  those  who 
had  killed  the  alliance  of  the  East  with  the  West  and 
was  now  cementing  more  securely  the  alliance  of  the 
West  with  the  South.  It  was  clear  enough;  but  there 
was  an  error  in  the  application  of  the  quotation  from 
Shakespeare  which,  as  we  shall  see,  Webster  was  quick 
to  seize  upon. 

After  trying  to  connect  Webster  with  the  "  bargain 
253 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

and  corruption,"  Hayne's  second  principal  object  was  to 
attack  the  conduct  of  Webster  and  New  England  in  the 
War  of  1812,  show  the  unpatriotic  conduct  of  New 
England,  and  her  strong  leaning  to  disunion,  which,  he 
said,  completely  cut  her  off  from  all  right  to  criticize 
any  tendency  to  disunion  in  South  Carolina,  and,  in  fact, 
fully  justified  South  Carolina  in  protecting  herself  by 
disunion  or  nullification  from  the  iniquities  of  the  pro 
tective  tariff  as  New  England  had  protected  herself  by 
threats  of  disunion  from  what  she  believed  to  be  the 
iniquities  of  the  embargo.  He  took  full  advantage  of 
the  mistake  Webster  had  made  in  exalting  Nathan  Dane 
as  a  Solon. 

"  Sir,  I  doubt  not  the  Senator  will  feel  some  compassion 
for  our  ignorance,  when  I  tell  him,  that  so  little  are  we 
acquainted  with  the  modern  great  men  of  New  England,  that, 
until  he  informed  us  yesterday,  that  we  possessed  a  Solon  and 
a  Lycurgus  in  the  person  of  Nathan  Dane,  he  was  only  known 
to  the  South  as  a  member  of  a  celebrated  assembly  called  and 
known  by  the  name  of  '  the  Hartford  Convention.'  In  the 
proceedings  of  that  assembly,  which  I  hold  in  my  hand  (at 
page  19),  it  will  be  found,  in  a  few  lines,  the  history  of  Nathan 
Dane ;  and  a  little  further  on,  there  is  conclusive  evidence  of 
that  ardent  devotion  to  the  interests  of  the  new  States,  which, 
it  seems,  has  given" him  a  just  claim  to  the  title  of  'Father  of 
the  West.'  By  the  2d  resolution  of  the  '  Hartford  Convention,' 
it  is  declared,  '  that  it  is  expedient  to  attempt  to  make  pro 
vision  for  restraining  Congress  in  the  exercise  of  an  unlimited 
power  to  make  new  States,  and  admitting  them  into  the  Union.' 
So  much  for  Nathan  Dane,  of  Beverly,  Massachusetts." 

In  order  to  make  the  disunion  tendency  of  New 
England  appear  the  greater  crime,  he  exalted  the  devo 
tion  of  South  Carolina  to  the  Union,  especially  in  the 
Revolution. 

"  If  there  be  one  State  in  this  Union  (and  I  say  it  not  in 
a  boastful  spirit)  that  may  challenge  comparison  with  any 
other  for  an  uniform,  zealous,  ardent,  and  uncalculating  devo 
tion  to  the  Union,  that  State  is  South  Carolina.  Sir,  from 
the  very  commencement  of  the  Revolution,  up  to  this  hour, 
there  is  no  sacrifice,  however  great,  she  has  not  cheerfully 
made;  no  service  she  has  ever  hesitated  to  perform."  .  .  . 

254 


THE  REPLY  TO  HAYNE 

"What,  sir,  was  the  conduct  of  the  South  during  the 
Revolution?  Sir,  I  honor  New  England  for  her  conduct  in 
that  glorious  struggle.  But  great  as  is  the  praise  which  belongs 
to  her,  I  think  at  least  equal  honor  is  due  to  the  South.  They 
espoused  the  quarrel  of  their  brethren  with  a  generous  zeal, 
which  did  not  suffer  them  to  stop  to  calculate  their  interest  in 
the  dispute.  Favorites  of  the  mother  country,  possessed  of 
neither  ships  nor  seamen  to  create  commercial  rivalship,  they 
might  have  found  in  their  situation  a  guarantee  that  their' trade 
would  be  forever  fostered  and  protected  by  Great  Britain. 
But  trampling  on  all  considerations,  either  of  interest  or  of 
safety,  they  rushed  into  the  conflict,  and,  fighting  for  prin 
ciple,  perilled  all  in  the  sacred  cause  of  freedom.  Never  was 
there  exhibited,  in  the  history  of  the  world,  higher  examples 
of  noble  daring,  dreadful  suffering,  and  heroic  endurance,  than 
by  the  whigs  of  Carolina,  during  that  Revolution." 

This  was  all  perfectly  true.  No  one  could  deny  it. 
Hayne  was  certainly  speaking  well— more  than  well, 
eloquently.  And  in  the  War  of  1812,  called  in  derision 
by  New  England,  said  Hayne,  "the  southern  war," 
what  was  the  conduct  of  South  Carolina  ?  The  war  was 
for  the  protection  of  northern  shipping  and  New  Eng 
land  seamen. 

"What  interest  had  the  South  in  that  contest?  If  they 
had  sat  down  coldly  to  calculate  the  value  of  their  interests 
involved  in  it,  they  would  have  found  that  they  had  everything 
to  lose  and  nothing  to  gain.  But,  sir,  with  that  generous 
devotion  to  country  so  characteristic  of  the  South,  they  only 
asked  if  the  rights  of  any  portion  of  their  fellow-citizens  had 
been  invaded;  and  when  told  that  Northern  ships  and  New 
England  seamen  had  been  arrested  on  the  common  highway  of 
nations,  they  felt  that  the  honor  of  their  country  was  assailed  ; 
and,  acting  on  that  exalted  sentiment,  '  which '  feels  a  stain 
like  a  wound/  they  resolved  to  seek,  in  open  war,  for  a  redress 
of  those  injuries  which  it  did  not  become  freemen  to  endure." 

Then  followed  a.  terrible  arraignment  of  Massa 
chusetts,  her  subserviency  to  England,  her  excuses  for 
England's  brutality  and  cruelty  to  our  sailors,  that  Eng 
land  had  done  us  no  essential  injury,  that  instead  of 
seizing  our  ships  she  had  protected  them,  that  if  she 
had  taken  sailors  from  our  vessels  it  was  by  mistake, 
because  she  could  not  distinguish  them  from  her  own. 

255 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

The  conduct  of  Massachusetts,  declared  Hayne,  was 
in  that  war  so  unpatriotic  and  disgraceful,  her  acts  in 
opposing  the  war  so  shameless,  that  her  "  own  legisla 
ture,  but  a  few  years  ago,  actually  blotted  them  out 
from  the  records,  as  a  stain  upon  the  honor  of  the 
country." 

"  Nothing  was  left  undone  to  embarrass  the  financial 
operations  of  the  Government,  to  prevent  the  enlistment  of 
troops,  to  keep  back  the  men  and  money  of  New  England  from 
the  service  of  the  Union,  to  force  the  President  from  his  seat. 
Yes,  sir,  '  the  Island  of  Elba !  or  a  halter ! '  were  the  alterna 
tives  they  presented  to  the  excellent  and  venerable  James 
Madison.  Sir,  the  war  was  further  opposed  by  openly  carrying 
on  illicit  trade  with  the  enemy,  by  permitting  that  enemy  to 
establish  himself  on  the  very  soil  of  Massachusetts,  and  by 
opening  a  free  trade  between  Great  Britain  and  America,  with 
a  separate  custom  house.  Yes,  sir,  those  who  cannot  endure 
the  thought  that  we  should  insist  on  a  free  trade  in  time  of 
profound  peace,  could  without  scruple  claim  and  exercise  the 
right  of  carrying  on  a  free  trade  with  the  enemy  in  a  time  of 
war ;  and,  finally,  by  getting  up  the  renowned  '  Hartford  Con 
vention,'  and  preparing  the  way  for  an  open  resistance  to  the 
Government,  and  a  separation  of  the  States.  Sir,  if  I  am  asked 
for  the  proof  of  those  things,  I  fearlessly  appeal  to  cotempo- 
rary  history,  to  the  public  documents  of  the  country,  to  the 
recorded  opinions  and  acts  of  public  assemblies,  to  the  decla 
ration  and  acknowledgments,  since  made,  of  the  Executive  and 
Legislature  of  Massachusetts  herself."  .  .  . 

"  But  I  will  ask,  with  what  justice  or  propriety  can  the 
South  be  accused  of  disloyalty  from  that  quarter?  If  we  had 
any  evidence  that  the  Senator  from  Massachusetts  had  admon 
ished  his  brethren  then,  he  might  with  a  better  grace  assume 
the  office  of  admonishing  us  now."  .  .  . 

"At  this  dark  period  of  our  National  affairs,  where^was 
the  Senator  from  Massachusetts?  How  were  his  political 
associates  employed?  'Calculating  the  value  of  the  Union?' 
Yes,  sir,  that  was  the  propitious  moment,  when  our  country 
stood  alone,  the  last  hope  of  the  world,  struggling  ^  for  her 
existence  against  the  colossal  power  of  Great  Britain,  '  concen 
trated  in  one  mighty  effort  to  crush  us  at  a  blow '—that  was 
the  chosen  hour  to  revive  the  grand  scheme  of  building  up 
'a  great  Northern  Confederacy '—a  scheme  which,  it  is  stated 
in  the  work  before  me,  had  its  origin  as  far  back  as  the  year 
1796,  and  which  appears  never  to  have  been  entirely  abandoned. 
In  the  language  of  the  writers  of  that  day  (1796),  'rather 

256 


THE  REPLY  TO  HAYNE 

than  have  a  constitution  such  as  the  anti-Federalists  were 
contending  for  (such  as  we  now  are  contending  for),  the 
Union  ought  to  be  dissolved.'  " 

We  can  see  now  why  for  many  a  long  year  Hayne 
was  the  idol  and  hero  of  the  South  and  of  the  Demo 
crats  of  the  North.  As  an  attack  his  speech  was  hardly 
inferior  to  some  of  the  famous  invectives  of  the  world. 
His  argument  that  Webster  and  the  New  Englanders 
had  no  right  to  rebuke  the  South  for  disunion  senti 
ment  was,  of  course,  fallacious.  New  England  had 
been  in  the  wrong  in  1812,  but  that  did" not "make ;  Caro 
lina  right  when  preaching  the  same  disunion  in  1830. 
She  should  have  learned  better  in  twenty  years.  New 
England  had  repented  of  her  sin.  Hayne  himself  had 
cited  the  resolution  of  the  Massachusetts  Legislature 
repudiating  the  doctrine  of  1812.  To  say  that  the 
mouths  of  Webster  and  his  constituents  were  forever 
closed,  that  they  could  never  rebuke  in  others  the  evil 
of  which  they  had  repented,  was  illogical,  impractical 
and  inexpedient.  But  as  a  slap  at  New  England  and 
Webster  this  disclosure  of  their  sin  and  repentance  was 
very  telling  and  delighted  those  who  wanted  to  hear  it. 
It  had  in  it  so  much  of  the  stump  speech  effectiveness 
that  it  was  the  most  important  part  of  Hayne's  reply. 
It  would  be  going  too  far  to  say  that  this  part  of  his 
speech  prevented  Webster  from  ever  attaining  the 
Presidency  or  even  a  nomination  for  it.  But  certain  it 
is  that  the  objection  given  out  by  a  section  of  his  party 
on  a  certain  occasion  for  not  nominating  him  was  that 
he  had  been  a  Federalist;  that,  in  short,  he  was  vul 
nerable  to  this  sort  of  stump  speech  attack  for  his  opposi 
tion  to  the  War  of  1812.  As  that  war  receded  into 
the  past  it  became  more  and  more  glorious,  and  those 
who  had  opposed  it  more  and  more  unpopular  in  spite 
of  all  repentance. 

Many  of  the  minor  passages  of  Hayne's  speech  are 
full  of  interest  and  throw  a  great  deal  of  light  on  the 
history  of  the  times.  In  fact,  the  speech  is  a  mine  of 
17  257 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

historical  information.  His  defence  of  slavery  as  it 
then  existed  in  the  South,  that  it  had  indirectly  con 
tributed  to  the  wealth  of  the  North,  that  though  theo 
retically  an  evil  it  was  practically  a  blessing,  is  as  clever 
as  any  defence  of  it  that  has  ever  been  made.  He  put 
forth  some  of  his  best  efforts  at  this  point ;  for  he  had 
been  greatly  irritated  by  Webster's  restrained  but  ill- 
concealed  contempt  for  the  "  peculiar  institution."  He 
got  back  at  him  by  expressing  the  contempt  and  pity 
common  among  southerners  at  that  time  for  those  "  out 
casts  of  the  world,"  the  "  free  people  of  color  "  of  the 
North. 

"  Sir,  there  does  not  exist,  on  the  face  of  the  whole  earth, 
a  population  so  poor,  so  wretched,  so  vile,  so  loathsome,  so 
utterly  destitute  of  all  the  comforts,  conveniences  and  decen 
cies  of  life,  as  the  unfortunate  blacks  of  Philadelphia,  New 
York  and  Boston.  Liberty  has  been  to  them  the  greatest  of 
calamities,  the  heaviest  of  curses.  Sir,  I  have  had  some  oppor 
tunities  of  making  comparisons  between  the  condition  of  the 
free  negroes  of  the  North  and  the  slaves  of  the  South,  and 
the  comparison  has  left  not  only  an  indelible  impression  of 
the  advantages  of  the  latter,  but  has  gone  far  to  reconcile  me 
to  slavery  itself." 

He  assailed  what  he  considered  Webster's  incon 
sistency  in  opposing  the  tariff  of  1824  and  advocating 
the  subsequent  tariff  of  1828,  the  "  bill  of  abominations." 

"  Sir,  if  I  had  erected  to  my  own  fame  so  proud  a  monu 
ment  as  that  which  the  gentleman  built  up  in  1824,  and  I  could 
have  been  tempted  to  destroy  it  with  my  own  hands,  I  should 
hate  the  voice  that  should  ring  the  '  accursed  tariff  in  my 
ears.' " 

Hayne  tried  hard  to  answer  Webster's  argument 
that  the  object  of  the  Constitution,  when  adopted  by 
the  States,  was  consolidation. 

"  Sir,  the  gentleman  is  mistaken.  The  object  of  the 
framers  of  the  Constitution,  as  disclosed  in  that  address,  was 
not  the  consolidation  of  the  Government,  but  '  the  consolida 
tion  of  the  Union.'  It  was  not  to  draw  power  from  the  States, 
in  order  to  transfer  it  to  a  great  National  Government,  but,  in 
the  language  of  the  Constitution  itself,  '  to  form  a  more  perfect 

258 


THE  REPLY  TO  HAYNE 

union.'  And  by  what  means?  By  'establishing  justice,'  'pro 
moting  domestic  tranquillity,'  and  '  securing  the  blessings  of 
liberty  to  ourselves  and  our  posterity.'  This  is  the  true  reading 
of  the  Constitution.  But,  according  to  the  gentleman's  reading, 
the  object  of  the  Constitution  was  to  consolidate  the  Govern 
ment,  and  the  means  would  seem  to  be  the  promotion  of 
injustice,  causing  domestic  discord,  and  depriving  the  States 
and  the  people  '  of  the  blessings  of  liberty '  forever." 

This  distinction  between  consolidating  the  Union 
and  consolidating  the  government  was  an  absurd  one; 
and  he  misconstrued  what  Webster  had  said.  If  the 
Union  is  consolidated,  necessarily  the  government  is 
consolidated  to  the  same  extent.  Hayne  had  reserved 
for  the  close  a  constitutional  argument;  but  it  was 
very  weak  and  made  a  poor  ending  for  his  speech.  He 
had  none  of  Webster's  skill  in  leading  up  to  a  powerful 
climax  at  the  end. 

His  final  argument  was  nothing  more  than  a  mere 
recital  of  the  well-known  Virginia  and  Kentucky  reso 
lutions,  as  they  were  called,  which  had  appeared  as  the 
doctrines  or  creed  of  his  party  in  1798,  when  it  was 
much  incensed  against  the  alien  and  sedition  laws  of 
Congress  and  inclined,  like  the  New  Englanders  of  1812, 
to  hold  Hartford  conventions,  and  talk  about  the  rights 
of  a  State  as  somewhat  more  important  than  the  Union. 
The  Virginia  resolutions  had  said  that — 

"  In  case  of  a  deliberate,  palpable  and  dangerous  exercise 
of  other  powers,  not  granted  by  the  said  compact,  the  States 
who  are  parties  thereto  have  the  right,  and  are  in  duty  bound, 
to  interpose  for  arresting  the  progress  of  the  evil,  and  for 
maintaining  within  their  respective  limits  the  authorities, 
rights  and  liberties  appertaining  to  them." 

The  next  year  the  subject  was  again  gone  over  in 
Virginia,  and  on  a  report  by  Madison  the  doctrine  was 
reiterated  in  merely  different  language. 

"The  States  then  being  the  parties  to  the  constitutional 
compact,  and  in  their  sovereign  capacity,  it  follows  of  necessity 
that  there  can  be  no  tribunal,  above  their  authority  to  decide 
in  the  last  resort." 

259 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

This  might  mean  merely  the  right  of  revolution, 
which  neither  Webster  nor  any  one  else  denied.  If 
any  government  becomes  absolutely  intolerable  the  peo 
ple,  as  a  last  resort,  may,  of  course,  change  it  by  force. 
This  was  a  recognized  American  doctrine,  set  forth 
originally  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  The 
last  resort  is,  of  course,  revolution  and  the  sword. 
But  the  question  at  issue  in  1830  was  whether  a  State 
had  the  right  peacefully  and  under  the  Constitution  to 
nullify  Acts  of  Congress  or  retire  from  the  Union. 

The  Kentucky  resolutions,  drafted  by  Jefferson, 
declared : 

"  That  the  Government  created  by  this  compact  was  not 
made  the  exclusive  or  final  judge  of  the  extent  of  the  powers 
delegated  to  itself,  since  that  would  make  its  discretion,  and 
not  the  Constitution,  the  measure  of  its  powers;  but  as  in  all 
other  cases  of  compact  among  parties  having  no  common 
judge,  each  party  has  an  equal  right  to  judge  for  itself,  as 
well  of  infractions  as  of  the  mode  and  measure  of  redress." 

This  again  may  mean  merely  the  right  of  revolution. 
But  if  each  State  can  "judge  for  itself"  in  every  in 
stance,  and  this  is  a  peaceable  right  under  the  Consti 
tution,  then  the  Union  under  the  Constitution  is  exactly 
the  same  as  it  was  under  the  old  Articles  of  Confedera 
tion. 

The  essential  weakness  of  these  Virginia  and  Ken 
tucky  resolutions  was  that  they  were  mere  party  asser 
tions  for  political  purposes,  and  like  all  such  assertions 
somewhat,  vague  and  general.  They  might  mean,  as 
some  Virginians  maintained,  that  a  State,  under  the 
circumstances  mentioned,  had  the  right  to  protest  and 
remonstrate,  but  nothing  more. 

As  soon  as  Hayne  'closed  his  speech  Webster  rose  to 
reply;  but  as  it  was  late  in  the  afternoon  the  Senate 
adjourned,  which  gave  Webster  the  floor  next  day,  the 
26th  of  January,  a  great  day  in  his  life.  The  galleries 
and  the  Senate  Chamber  itself  had  been  crowded  with 
visitors  to  hear  Hayne.  A  lady  sat  in  his  chair  while 

260 


PORTRAIT    OF    WEBSTER    BY    HARDING 
In  the  possession  of  J.  Carroll  Payne,  Esq. 


THE  REPLY  TO  HAYNE 

he  stood  speaking  by  her  side.1  Now  every  available 
place  was  again  filled ;  and  the  crowd  extended  out  into 
the  corridors  and  down  the  staircases.  Webster  had 
never,  he  afterwards  said,  spoken  "  in  the  presence  of  an 
audience  so  eager  and  so  sympathetic."  His  notes  for 
a  speech  that  fills  seventy  pages  of  print  were  written 
with  great  brevity  on  five  pages  of  letter  paper.  But 
they  had  evidently  been  written  merely  to  start  the 
subject  in  his  mind.  He  had  no  need  to  refer  to  them. 
"  All  I  had  ever  known,"  he  said,  "  seemed  to  be  floating 
before  me." 

But  there  were  not  a  few  friends  both  of  him  and  of 
the  northern  cause  who  were  filled  with  anxiety  and 
feared  that  he  would  never  be  able  to  answer  the  on 
slaught  of  Hayne.     Edward  Everett  in  great  uneasiness 
went  to  his  house  that  evening,  and,  finding  him  cool 
and  serene,  thought  he  was  not  aware  of  the  magnitude 
of  the  contest.     He  asked  him  if  he  had  taken  notes  of 
Hayne's   speech.      "  Yes,"   said   Webster,   taking   from 
his  vest  pocket  a  piece  of  paper  no  bigger  than  the 
palm  of  his  hand.     "  I  have  it  all;  that  is  his  speech." 
The  truth  was  that  though  apparently  with  little  time 
for  preparation  he  had  had  in  reality  the  preparation 
of  years.     He  had  prepared  himself  several  times  be 
fore  for  public  land  speeches  and  constitutional  speeches. 
Before  he  rose  to  speak  they  say  that  another  anx 
ious  friend  passing  near  his  seat  said  in  a  low  voice, 
"  Are  you  loaded,  Senator  ?  "     To  which  he  grimly  re 
plied :  "Seven  fingers,"  a  jest  which   referred  to  the 
muzzle-loading  shotguns   of   those   days   which,   when 
heavily  charged,  caused  the  ramrod  to  stand  out  seven 
fingers  above  the  muzzle. 

He  began  his  reply  with  a  passage  that  has  often 
been  admired ;  and  as  delivered  by  his  powerful  presence 
and  deep  voice,  it  was,  no  doubt,  very  impressive: 

"Mrs.  S.  H.  Smith,  "First  Forty  Years  of  Washing 
ton,"  p.  310. 

261 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

"  MR.  PRESIDENT  :     When  the  mariner  has  been  tossed  for 
many    days    in   thick   weather,    and   on   an   unknown    sea,    he 
naturally  avails  himself  of  the  first  pause  in  the  storm,  the 
earliest  glance  of  the  sun,  to  take  his  latitude,  and  ascertain  . 
how  far  the  elements  have  driven  him  from  his  true  course. 
Let  us  imitate  this  prudence,  and,  before  we  float  farther  c 
the  waves  of  this  debate,  refer  to  the  point  from  which  we 
departed,   that  we  may  at  least  be  able  to  conjecture  where 
we  now  are.    I  ask  for  the  reading  of  the  resolution  b 
Senate." 

He  showed  how  the  debate  had  wandered.     He  dis 
posed   of   preliminary   matters.     He  had  been   in   the 
Supreme  Court  when  Benton's  attack  on  the  East  had 
been   delivered    and   had    not   heard   it. 
Hayne's  speech  for  a  reply  because  he  had  heard 

"  Sir  I  answered  the  gentleman's  speech  because  I  hap 
pened  to' hear  it,  and  because,  also,  I  chose  to  give  an  answer 
to  that  speech,  vihich,  if  unanswered,  I  thought  most  likely  to 
produce  injurious  impressions.  I  did  not  stop  to  inquire  who 
Ts  the  original  drawer  of  the  bill,  I  found  a -  responsAle 
indorser  before  me,  and  it  was  my  purpose  to  hold  him  liable, 
and  bring  him  to  his  just  responsibility  without 

He  ridiculed  the  notion  that  he  had  avoided  Benton 
because   he   feared   to   be   overmatched;    and   then   he 
addressed  himself  to  the  coalition,  the  '  bargain  and 
corruption  "  which  was  supposed  to  have  made  Adams 
President.     It  really  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  merit 
of  the  debate;  but  every  Whig  usually  had  to  defend 
himself   from  it  at  some  time,  either  by  a  duel  like 
Clay's  with  Randolph,  or  repeated  public  denials, 
only  defence  was  a  denial.      The  charge  could  not  b 
proved;  it  could  merely  be  asserted  with  more  or  1 
innuendo-  and  the  answer  was  necessarily  no  differei 
In  Webster's  case  the  attempt  to  fasten  it  on  him  was 
very  strained.     Hayne  had  to  do  it  by  a  con  fusion  of 
words  and  a  very  obvious  misapplication  of  the  i 
nf HRanauo's  efaort      It  would  be  Benton,  the  murderer 
a    £  To  1  tion    who  would  be  afraid  of  its  ghost   not 
any  of  the  coalition's  friends,  and  the  passage  in  which 

.  262 


THE  REPLY  TO  HAYNE 

Webster  brought  this  out  has  always  been  one  of  the 
most  popular  of  the  reply. 

"  But,  Sir,  the  honorable  member  was  not,  for  other 
reasons,  entirely  happy  in  his  allusion  to  the  story  of  Banquo's 
murder  and  Banquo's  ghost.  It  was  not,  I  think,  the  friends, 
but  the  enemies  of  the  murdered  Banquo,  at  whose  bidding  his 
spirit  would  not  down.  The  honorable  gentleman  is  fresh  in 
his  reading  of  the  English  classics,  and  can  put  me  right  if  I 
am  wrong;  but,  according  to  my  poor  recollection,  it  was  at 
those  who  had  begun  with  caresses  and  ended  with  foul  and 
treacherous  murder  that  the  gory  locks  were  shaken.  The 
ghost  of  Banquo,  like  that  of  Hamlet,  was  an  honest  ghost. 
It  disturbed  no  innocent  man.  It  knew  where  its  appearance 
would  strike  terror,  and  who  would  cry  out,  a  ghost !  It  made 
itself  visible  in  the  right  quarter,  and  compelled  the  guilty  and 
the  conscience-smitten,  and  none  others,  to  start,  with 

'  Pr'ythee,  see  there  !     Behold !— look !  lo 
If  I  stand  here,  I  saw  him ! ' 

"Their  eyeballs  were  seared  (was  it  not  so,  Sir?)  *who 
had  thought  to  shield  themselves  by  concealing  their  own  hand, 
and  laying  the  imputation  of  the  crime  on  a  low  and  hireling 
agency  in  wickedness;  who  had  vainly  attempted  to  stifle  the 
workings  of  their  own  coward  conscience  by  ejaculating 
through  white  lips  and  chattering  teeth,  '  Thou  canst  not  say 
I  did  it ! '  I  have  misread  the  great  poet  if  those  who  had 
no  way  partaken  in  the  deed  of  the  death,  either  found  that 
they  were,  or  feared  that  they  should  be,  pushed  from  their 
stools  by  the  ghost  of  the  slain,  or  exclaimed  to  a  spectre 
created  by  their  own  fears  and  their  own  remorse,  '  Avaunt ! 
and  quit  our  sight !'  " 

Webster  then  very  unexpectedly  turned  the  story  of 
Banquo  against  the  South,  and  with  a  forecast  of  the 
events  of  the  next  forty  years  that  was  quite  remarkable. 

"  There  is  another  particular  in  which  the  honorable 
member's  quick  perception  of  resemblances  might,  I  should 
think,  have  seen  something  in  the  story  of  Banquo,  making  it 
not  altogether  a  subject  of  the  most  pleasant  contemplation. 
Those  who  murdered  Banquo,  what  did  they  win  by  it?  Sub 
stantial  good?  Permanent  power?  Or  disappointment,  rather, 
and  sore  mortification;  dust  and  ashes,  the  common  fate  of 
vaulting  ambition  overleaping  itself?  Did  not  even-handed 

263 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

justice  ere  long  commend  the  poisoned  chalice  to  their  own 
lips?  Did  they  not  soon  find  that  for  another  they  had  filed 
their  mind?  That  ambition,  though  apparently  for  the  moment 
successful,  had  but  put  a  barren  sceptre  in  their  grasp  ?  Ay,  sir, 

'  a  barren  sceptre  in  their  gripe 
Thence  to  be  wrenched  with  an  unlineal  hand 
No  son  of  theirs  succeeding.' 

"  Sir,  I  need  pursue  the  allusion  no  farther.  I  leave  the 
honorable  gentleman  to  run  it  out  at  his  leisure,  and  to  derive 
from  it  all  the  gratification  it  is  calculated  to  administer.  If 
he  finds  himself  pleased  with  the  associations,  and  prepared  to 
be  quite  satisfied,  though  the  parallel  should  be  entirely  com 
pleted,  I  had  almost  said,  I  am  satisfied  also;  but  this  I 
shall  think  of,  yes,  sir,  I  will  think  of  that." 

The  meaning  here  was  that  although  the  South  had 
succeeded  in  murdering  friendliness  between  the  North 
east  and  the  West,  yet  the  South  would  gain  nothing 
from  it  in  the  end.  They  would  not  win  permanent 
power;  the  West  would  not  in  the  end  go  all  the  way 
with  them  in  their  extreme  plans  of  nullification  and 
secession.  This  warning  was  literally  fulfilled.  The 
South  secured  the  assistance  of  the  West  in  abolishing 
the  tariff  for  a  time,  and  in  protecting  slavery;  but 
in  the  end,  the  West  deserted  the  South ;  the  tariff  was 
restored,  slavery  abolished,  and  nullification  and  seces 
sion  completely  discredited. 

One  of  the  most  tiresome  notions  of  that  time  was 
that  a  statesman  must  remain  perfectly  consistent  from 
childhood  to  old  age  and  never  change  his  opinions.  It 
was  absolutely  silly,  because  all  men  and  communities, 
if  not  entirely  stupid,  change  their  minds.  But  dignified 
Senators  were  constantly  attacking  one  another  on  this 
ground,  and  a  large  part  of  Hayne's  speech  was  made 
up  of  this  sort  of  catch-penny  stump  oratory.  One  of 
the  most  effective  parts  of  Webster's  reply  was  that  in 
which  he  showed  that  South  Carolina  had  passed 
through  changes  of  opinion ;  had  voted  for  internal  im 
provements  which  she  now  opposed,  and  voted  for  the 
protective  tariff  which  she  now  opposed  by  threatening 

264 


THE  REPLY  TO  HAYNE 

to  destroy  the  Union.  She  had  voted  for  the  protec 
tive  tariff  of  1816  which  was  to  promote  the  interests 
of  manufacturers  of  southern  cotton  to  the  injury  of 
the  Calcutta  cotton  trade,  which  brought  profits  to 
New  England  ship-owners. 

"  Yes  Sir,  I  pursued  in  all  this  a  South  Carolina  track  on 
the  doctrines  of  internal  improvement.  South  Carolina,  as  she 
was  then  represented  in  the  other  house,  set  forth  in  1816  under 
a  fresh  and  leading  breeze,  and  I  was  among  the  followers. 
But  if  my  leader  sees  new  lights  and  turns  a  sharp  corner, 
unless  I  see  new  lights  also,  1  keep  straight  on  in  the  same 
path.  I  repeat,  that  leading  gentlemen  from  South  Carolina 
were  first  and  foremost  in  behalf  of  the  doctrines  of  internal 
improvements,  when  those  doctrines  came  first  to  be  considered 
and  acted  upon  in  Congress.  The  debate  on  the  bank  ques 
tion,  on  the  tariff  of  1816,  and  on  the  direct  tax,  will  show  who 
was  who,  and  what  was  what,  at  that  time." 

"The  tariff  of  1816  (one  of  the  plain  cases  of  oppression 
and  usurpation,  from  which,  if  the  government  does  not  recede, 
individual  States  may  justly  secede  from  the  government),  is, 
Sir,  in  truth,  a  South  Carolina  tariff,  supported  by  South 
Carolina  votes.  But  for  those  votes,  it  could  not  have  passed 
in  the  form  in  which  it  did  pass;  whereas,  if  it  had  depended 
on  Massachusetts  votes,  it  would  have  been  lost." 

This  was  a  hard  hit ;  and  both  Hayne  and  Calhoun 
labored  for  years  to  explain  it  away  by  saying  that  Caro 
lina  had  voted  for  the  tariff  in  1816  because  in  some 
respects  it  reduced  the  duties.  But  it  was  an  avowed 
protective  tariff  all  the  same ;  and  in  the  appendix  to  his 
speech  as  printed,  Webster  quoted  passages  from  Cal 
houn 's  speeches  defending  the  tariff  of  1816  as  a  pro 
tection  and  encouragement  to  infant  industries. 

Webster  defended  New  England  by  connecting  in  a 
most  striking  way  the  doctrine  of  internal  improve 
ments  with  the  most  enlightened  and  lofty  union  senti 
ment  ;  and  it  was  the  wonderful  union  sentiment  in  this 
speech  that  has  given  it  distinction  and  permanent  value. 
If  it  had  been  merely  an  answer  to  "  local  hits  "  and 
charges  of  inconsistency  neither  it  nor  Hayne  would 
have  been  so  much  heard  of. 

265 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

"  'What  interest,'  asks  he,  '  has  South  Carolina  in  a  canal 
in  Ohio  ? '  Sir,  this  very  question  is  full  of  significance.  It 
develops  the  gentleman's  whole  political  system,  and  its  answer 
expounds  mine.  Here  we  differ.  I  look  upon  a  road  over  the 
Alleghanies,  a  canal  round  the  falls  of  the  Ohio,  or  a  canal  or 
railway  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Western  waters,  as  being  an 
object  large  and  extensive  enough  to  be  fairly  said  to  be  for 
the  common  benefit.  The  gentleman  thinks  otherwise,  and  this 
is  the  key  to  his  construction  of  the  powers  of  the  government. 
He  may  well  ask  what  interest  has  South  Carolina  in  a  canal  in 
Ohio.  On  his  system,  it  is  true,  she  has  no  interest.  On  that 
system,  Ohio  and  Carolina  are  different  governments,  and 
different  countries ;  connected  here,  it  is  true,  by  some  slight 
and  ill-defined  bond  of  union,  but  in  all  main  respects  separate 
and  diverse.  On  that  system,  Carolina  has  ho  more  interest 
in  a  canal  in  Ohio  than  in  Mexico.  The  gentleman,  therefore, 
only  follows  out  his  own  principles ;  he  does  no  more  than 
arrive  at  the  natural  conclusions  of  his  own  doctrines ;  he  only 
announces  the  true  result  of  that  creed  which  he  has  adopted 
himself,  and  would  persuade  others  to  adopt,  when  he  thus 
declares  that  South  Carolina  has  no  interest  in  a  public  work 
in  Ohio." 

"  Sir,  we  narrow-minded  people  of  New  England  do  not 
reason  thus.  Our  notion  of  things  is  entirely  different.  We 
look  upon  the  States,  not  as  separated,  but  as  united.  We  love 
to  dwell  on  that  union,  and  on  the  mutual  happiness  which  it 
has  so  much  promoted,  and  the  common  renown  which  it  has 
so  greatly  contributed  to  acquire.  .  .  . 

"  Sir,  if  a  railroad  or  canal  beginning  in  South  Carolina 
and  ending  in  South  Carolina  appeared  to  me  to  be  of  national 
importance  and  national  magnitude,  believing,  as  I  do,  that 
the  power  of  government  extends  to  the  encouragement  of 
works  of  that  description,  if  I  were  to  stand  tip  here  and  ask, 
What  interest  has  Massachusetts  in  a  railroad  in  South  Caro 
lina?  I  should  not  be  willing  to  face  my  constituents.  These 
same  narrow-minded  men  would  tell  me,  that  they  had  sent 
me  to  act  for  the  whole  country,  and  that  one  who  possessed 
too  little  comprehension,  either  of  intellect  or  feeling,  one  who 
was  not  large  enough,  both  in  mind  and  in  heart,  to  embrace 
the  whole,  was  not  fit  to  be  intrusted  with  the  interest  of 
any  part." 

That  was  one  of  the  finest  passages  of  the  reply, 
has  been  read  with  delight  by  millions,  and  has  been 
quoted  hundreds  of  times. 

Webster  defended  New  England  from  Hayne's 
266 


THE  REPLY  TO  HAYNE 

charge  of  sectionalism  and  disunion  sentiment  in  1812 
by  the  defence  already  given,  the  only  one  that  could 
be  given,  namely,  that  New  England  had  changed  her 
mind  and  repented,  and  that  her  sin  of  disunion  in  1812 
was  no  excuse  for  South  Carolina's  disunion  of  1830. 

"New  England  has,  at  times,  so  argues  the  gentleman, 
held  opinions  as  dangerous  as  those  which  he  now  holds. 
Suppose  this  were  so;  why  should  he  therefore  abuse  New 
England?  If  he  finds  himself  countenanced  by  acts  of  hers, 
how  is  it  that,  while  he  relies  on  these  facts,  he  covers,  or  seeks 
to  cover,  their  authors  with  reproach?  .  .  . 

"  It  is  enough  for  me  to  say,  that  if,  in  any  part  of  their 
grateful  occupation,  if,  in  all  their  researches,  they  find  any 
thing  in  the  history  of  Massachusetts,  or  New  England,  or  in 
the  proceedings  of  any  legislative  or  other  public  body,  disloyal 
to  the  Union,  speaking  slightingly  of  its  value,  proposing  to 
break  it  up,  or  recommending  non-intercourse  with  neighboring 
States,  on  account  of  difference  of  political  opinion,  then,  Sir, 
I  give  them  all  up  to  the  honorable  gentleman's  unrestrained 
rebuke;  expecting,  however,  that  he  will  extend  his  bufferings 
in  like  manner  to  all  similar  proceedings,  wherever  else  found." 

Then  came  a  famous  passage  which  has  stirred  the 
whole  country  ever  since;  and  it  is  said  to  have  been 
delivered  as  he  glanced  at  a  group  of  Massachusetts 
people  in  the  audience. 

"  Mr.  President,  I  shall  enter  on  no  encomium  upon  Mas 
sachusetts  ;  she  needs  none.  There  she  is.  Behold  her,  and 
judge  for  yourselves.  There  is  her  history;  the  world  knows 
it  by  heart.  The  past,  at  least,  is  secure.  There  is  Boston, 
and  Concord,  and  Lexington,  and  Bunker  Hill;  and  there  they 
will  remain  forever.  The  bones  of  her  sons,  f ailing  ^  in  the 
great  struggle  for  Independence,  now  lie  mingled  with  the 
soil  of  every  State  from  New  England  to  Georgia;  and  there 
they  will  lie  forever.  And,  Sir,  where  American  Liberty 
raised  its  first  voice,  and  where  its  youth  was  nurtured  and 
sustained,  there  it  still  lives,  in  the  strength  of  its  manhood 
and  full  of  its  original  spirit.  If  discord  and  disunion  shall 
wound  it,  if  party  strife  and  blind  ambition  shall  hawk  at  and 
tear  it,  if  folly  and  madness,  if  uneasiness  under  salutary  and 
necessary  restraint,  shall  succeed  in  separating  it  from  that 
Union,  by  which  alone  its  existence  is  made  sure,  it  will  stand, 
in  the  end,  by  the  side  of  that  cradle  in  which  its  infancy  was 

267 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

rocked ;  it  will  stretch  forth  its  arm  with  whatever  of  vigor  it 
may  still  retain  over  the  friends  who  gather  round  it ;  and  it 
will  fall  at  last,  if  fall  it  must,  amidst  the  proudest  monuments 
of  its  own  glory,  and  on  the  very  spot  of  its  origin." 

The  ground  being  now  cleared  of  the  rubbish  of  sup 
posed  inconsistencies  and  personalities,  Webster  ad 
dressed  himself  to  South  Carolina's  legal  argument  for 
nullification  and  secession.  He  began  in  a  very  neat 
way  by  showing  that  when  Massachusetts  had  believed 
the  embargo  law  unconstitutional  and  had  talked  about 
disunion  she  did  not  undertake  to  say  that  she,  as  a 
State,  would  nullify  that  law.  In  spite  of  all  her  com 
plaints,  all  her  disunion  sentiment,  she  nevertheless  ad 
mitted  that  only  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  could  decide  the  question  of  the  constitutionality 
of  the  embargo.  To  the  Supreme  Court  she  took  the 
question,  and  when  it  decided  against  her  and  in  favor 
of  the  embargo  law  she  accepted  the  situation  and  all 
disunion  sentiment  became  mere  history. 

That  was  the  exact  opposite  of  the  South  Carolina 
method  based  on  the  Virginia  and  Kentucky  resolutions. 
According  to  Hayne  and  South  Carolina  the  general 
government  was  the  creature  of  each  of  the  States 
severally,  so  that  each  could  construe  its  acts  and  accept 
or  reject  them.  The  government  was  the  servant  of 
four  and  twenty  masters,  of  different  wills  and  dif 
ferent  purposes,  and  yet  bound  to  obey  them  all.  Web 
ster  went  on  to  show  the  impossible  condition  that 
would  result  from  each  State  construing  the  Constitution 
in  its  own  way. 

"  The  tariff  is  a  usurpation ;  it  is  a  dangerous  usurpation ; 
it  is  a  palpable  usurpation;  it  is  a  deliberate  usurpation.  It  is 
such  a  usurpation,  therefore,  as  calls  upon  the  States  to 
exercise  their  right  of  interference.  Here  is  a  case  then  within 
the  gentleman's  principles,  and  all  his  qualifications  of  his 
principles.  It  is  a  case  for  action.  The  Constitution  is  plainly, 
dangerously,  palpably  and  deliberately  violated,  and  the  States 
must  interpose  their  own  authority  to  arrest  the  law.  Let  us 
suppose  the  State  of  South  Carolina  to  express  this  same 

268 


THE  REPLY  TO  HAYNE 

opinion,  by  the  voice  of  her  legislature.  That  would  be  very 
imposing;  but  what  then?  Is  the  voice  of  one  State  con 
clusive?  It  so  happens  that,  at  the  very  moment  when  South 
Carolina  resolves  that  the  tariff  laws  are  unconstitutional, 
Pennsylvania  and  Kentucky  resolve  exactly  the  reverse.  They 
hold  these  laws  to  be  highly  proper  and  strictly  constitutional." 
"What  is  to  be  done?  Are  these  States  both  right?  Is 
he  bound  to  consider  them  both  right?  If  not,  which  is  in  the 
wrong?  or  rather,  which  has  the  better  right  to  decide?  And 
if  he  and  I  are  not  to  know  what  the  Constitution  means,  and 
what  it  is,  till  those  two  State  legislatures,  and  the  twenty-two 
others,  shall  agree  in  its  construction,  what  have  we  sworn  to 
when  we  have  sworn  to  maintain  it  ?  " 

The  vice  in  the  argument  of  the  Virginia  and  Ken 
tucky  resolutions  was,  that  while  they  laid  down  as\ 
foundation  principles  that  the  government  was  the  mere 
creature  or  agent  of  the  States,  they  showed  no  way  by 
which  the  States  could  agree  as  to  the  manner  of  con 
trolling  the  agent.  Webster  laid  down  and  proved  the 
now  generally  accepted  doctrine  that  the  general  gov 
ernment  was  not  created  by  the  States,  but  by  the 
people ;  and  the  people  had  also  created  the  State  gov 
ernments.  The  people  were  the  sole  creators  and 
masters  of  the  whole  situation.  Constitutional  ques 
tions,  violations  of  the  Constitution,  were  to  be  settled 
by  the  people  through  frequent  elections,  by  the  decisions 
of  the  Supreme  Court,  and  by  the  power  to  alter  and 
amend  the  Constitution  provided  in  the  instrument  itself. 
Beyond  that  there  was  nothing  but  revolution  and  the 
sword. 

This  was  the  most  powerful  and  complete  argument 
that  had  thus  far  ever  been  stated  in  either  court  or 
forum  against  nullification  and  secession.  It  is  the  part 
of  the  reply  which  lawyers  and  statesmen  value  more 
than  any  other.  Its  technical  details  finished,  Webster 
turned  again  to  union  sentiment,  and  gently  led  his 
hearers  to  that  famous  peroration  which  closed  the 
Reply  to  Hayne. 

"  I  have  not  allowed  myself,  Sir,  to  look  beyond  the 
Union,  to  see  what  might  lie  hidden  in  the  dark  recess  behind. 

269 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

I  have  not  coolly  weighed  the  chances  of  preserving  liberty 
when  the  bonds  that  unite  us  together  shall  be  broken  asunder. 
I  have  not  accustomed  myself  to  hang  over  the  precipice  of 
disunion,  to  see  whether,  with  my  short  sight,  I  can  fathom  the 
depth  of  the  abyss  below ;  nor  could  I  regard  him  as  a  safe 
counsellor  in  the  affairs  of  this  government  whose  thoughts 
should  be  mainly  bent  on  considering,  not  how  the  Union  may 
be  best  preserved,  but  how  tolerable  might  be  the  condition  of 
the  people  when  it  should  be  broken  up  and  destroyed.  While 
the  Union  lasts,  we  have  high,  exciting,  gratifying  prospects 
spread  out  before  us,  for  us  and  our  children.  Beyond  that  I 
seek  not  to  penetrate  the  veil.  God  grant  that  in  my  day,  at 
least,  that  curtain  may  not  rise !  God  grant  that  on  my  vision 
never  may  be  opened  what  lies  behind !  When  my  eyes  shall 
be  turned  to  behold  for  the  last  time  the  sun  in  heaven,  may 
I  not  see  him  shining  on  the  broken,  dishonored  fragments  of  a 
once  glorious  Union;  on  States  dissevered,  discordant,  bellig 
erent  ;  on  a  land  rent  with  civil  feuds,  or  drenched,  it  may  be, 
in  fraternal  blood !  Let  their  last  feeble  and  lingering  glance 
rather  behold  the  gorgeous  ensign  of  the  republic,  now  known 
and  honored  throughout  the  earth,  still  full  high  advanced,  its 
arms  and  trophies  streaming  in  their  original  lustre,  not  a 
stripe  erased  or  polluted,  nor  a  single  star  obscured,  bearing 
for  its  motto,  no  such  miserable  interrogatory  as  '  What  is  all 
this  worth?'  nor  those  other  words  of  delusion  and  folly, 
'  Liberty  first  and  Union  afterwards ' ;  but  everywhere,  spread 
all  over  in  characters  of  living  light,  blazing  on  all  its  ample 
folds,  as  they  float  over  the  sea  and  over  the  land,  and  in  every 
wind  under  the  whole  heavens,  that  other  sentiment,  dear  to 
every  true  American  heart, — Liberty  and  Union,  now  and  for 
ever,  one  and  inseparable  !  " 

Hayne  immediately  replied  at  considerable  length  to 
Webster.  It  was  late  in  the  afternoon,  and  not  being 
able  to  say  all  he  wished  on  the  constitutional  question, 
the  omitted  arguments  were  afterwards  added  in  his 
printed  speech.  The  first  part  of  his  reply  contained 
nothing  of  much  importance.  Webster's  speech  had 
shown  so  clearly  the  uselessness  of  charges  of  incon 
sistency  and  change  of  mind,  when  every  one  of  any 
sense  was  guilty  of  them,  that  Hayne  accepted  the 
situation  and  spent  much  time  showing  that  his  own 
changes  of  mind  on  the  tariff  and  internal  improvements 
had  been  proper  ones.  The  charge  that  South  Carolina 

270 


THE  REPLY  TO  HAYNE 

was  adopting  the  doctrines  of  the  Hartford  Convention 
he  could  answer  only  by  saying  she  was  using  them  in 
a  time  of  peace  and  for  a  peaceful  purpose.  She  would 
not  use  them  as  New  England  had  done  when  the  coun 
try  was  at  war.  "  We  Carolinians,"  said  Hayne,  "  would 
not  take  advantage  of  the  difficulties  created  by  a 
foreign  war  to  wring  from  the  Federal  government  a 
redress  even  of  our  grievances.  We  would  first  fly  to 
the  defence  of  the  country,  and  after  that  demand  our 
constitutional  rights." 

In  fact,  Hayne  was  driven  so  far  from  most  of  his 
positions  that  his  last  speech  was  largely  an  attempt  to 
show  that  South  Carolina's  nullification  theories  were 
really  methods  of  saving  the  Union  and  that  he  was 
more  of  a  union  man  than  Webster. 

He  strove  hard  to  restore  the  doctrines  of  the  Vir 
ginia  and  Kentucky  resolutions.  He  did  this  by  ex 
plaining  the  theory  on  which  they  were  supposed  to  rest, 
namely,  that  the  Constitution  was  a  compact  between  the 
States;  that  the  States  came  together  and  formed  this 
compact.  But  he  could  not  stop  there  and  say  that  the 
States  were  the  only  parties  to  it,  because  the  answer 
would  be  that  the  Constitution,  being  the  written  evi 
dence  of  the  compact  of  the  States,  contained  several 
clauses  not  only  restricting  State  action,  but  providing 
that  Acts  of  Congress  should  be  the  law  of  the  land 
and  that  the  Supreme  Court  should  decide  all  ques 
tions  arising  under  that  law  of  the  land.  This  answer 
would  again  deliver  him  into  Webster's  hands.  So  he  . 
went  a  step  farther  and  said  that  there  was  another  *S 
party  to  the  compact,  namely,  the  general  government 
itself,  created  by  the  compact ;  that  is  to  say,  the  States 
came  together  and  made  a  compact  or  contract  creating 
a  general  government,  and  then  this  general  government 
immediately  became  another  party  to  the  compact. 

The  parties  to  the  compact  thus  being  the  States  and 
the  general  government,  it  could  not  be  supposed  that 
one  of  those  parties,  namely,  the  general  government, 

271 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

had  the  sole  authority  to  interpret  the  terms  of  the  com 
pact.  Each  party  must  be  the  judge  and  interpreter, 
because  all  were  equal  and  there  was  no  superior. 

No  difficulty  would  be  experienced  with  this  method, 
he  said.  There  would  be  no  armed  collision  between 
the  State  and  Federal  government;  no  treason,  no  re 
bellion.  A  State  having  formally  declared  certain  legis 
lation  of  Congress  unconstitutional  the  burden  would 
then  be  upon  Congress  to  ask,  in  the  manner  provided, 
for  an  amendment  to  the  Constitution  giving  it  the 
power  the  State  had  denied.  The  Constitution  provided 
that  it  could  be  amended  by  vote  of_ three-fourths  of.  the 
States.  This  was  the  only  way  in  which  the  compact 
could  be  changed ;  and  to  this  amending  power,  that  is 
to  three-fourths  of  the  States,  must  the  appeal  be  made 
when  a  State  and  the  Congress  came  in  conflict.  It  was 
a  perfectly  peaceful  method.  If  the  Congress  obtained 
the  amendment  then  it  would  have  the  power  it  wanted ; 
if  not,  then  it  must  rest  content. 

Why,  he  asks,  should  not  each  sovereign  State  have 
this  right  of  decision  as  well  as  the  Supreme  Court  at 
Washington  ?  The  court  can  decide  only  the  cases  that 
arise  in  litigation  involving  Acts  of  Congress.  It  can 
not  decide  great  questions  of  sovereignty  like  the  tariff 
and  internal  improvements.  These  sovereign  questions 
should  be  left  to  the  decision  of  the  sovereign  States.  , 

It  was  certainly  a  most  magnificent  plan  for  State 
rights.  Any  one  State  might  deny,  nullify  and  declare 
unconstitutional  any  congressional  legislation,  even 
legislation  involving  the  most  ordinary  and  expressly 
given  powers  of  Congress.  The  burden  would  then  be 
on  Congress  to  obtain  justification  from  three-fourths 
of  the  States  or  abandon  its  legislation  as  regards  the 
objecting  State.  The  Constitution  would  have  to  be 
amended  every  time  one  State  chose  to  protest.  While 
the  long  process  of  amendment  was  being  gone  through 
the  law  would  not  be  enforced  at  all ;  or  would  be 
enforced  in  most  of  the  States  and  unenforced  in  one. 

272 


THE  REPLY  TO  HAYNE 

The  tariff,  for  example,  might  be  enforced  in  the  ports 
of  Boston,  New  York  and  Philadelphia,  and  goods 
come  in  free  at  Charleston.  Truly  the  Union  would  be, 
as  Webster  said,  a  rope  of  sand.  The  conditions  would 
be  the  same  as  they  were  under  the  old  Articles  of  Con 
federation  upon  which  the  Constitution  was  intended 
to  be  an  improvement. 

:^^Ha^^masjQ!!^^^  he  started^ 

simply  led  round  and  round  in  the  same  circle ;  round 
again  to  the  rope  of  sand  and  the  old  Articles  of  Confed 
eration.  He  argued  that  if  the  general  government 
transgressed,  each  State  had  a  right  to  check  it  by  nulli 
fying  the  offending  law.  But  if  all  the  parties  to  the 
compact  were,  as  he  said,  sovereigns  and  equals,  then 
the  general  government,  being  a  sovereign  equal,  had 
a  right  to  check  a  State.  So  the  compact  would  be 
merely  a  league  of  sovereigns  like  the  old  Articles  of 
Confederation. 

In  fact,  in  one  part  of  his  speech,  he  had  said  that 
the  States  were  like  nations.  There  would  be  no  diffi 
culty  when  one  of  them  was  brought  into  collision  with 
the  general  government  on  a  constitutional  question. 
It  would  simply  be  a  common  case  of  difference  of  opin 
ion  between  sovereigns  as  to  the  true  construction  of  a 
compact.  "  Does  such  a  difference  of  opinion  necessa 
rily  produce  war  ?  No.  And  if  not  among  rival  nations, 
why  should  it  do  so  among  friendly  States  ?  " 

He  did  not  seem  to  realize  that  he  had  argued  the 
Constitution  completely  out  o-f  existence  and  had  gone 
back  to  the  old  Articles  of  Confederation.  In  the  be 
ginning  of  his  argument  it  had  suited  his  purpose  to 
make  the  general  government  a  patty  to  the  contract 
and  a  sovereign ;  but  in  the  end  it  was  the  States  that 
had  the  sole  right  to  check  and  nullify ;  and  the  sover 
eign  party  called  the  general  government  could  only 
yield. 

But  it  was  all,  he  assures  us,  a  plan  to  preserve  the 
Union.     This   devotion   to  the   Union   was  a   common 
18  273 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

accompaniment  of  nullification  arguments,  sometimes  as 
a  preface,  sometimes  as  a  peroration.  The  ordinances 
of  secession  dissolving  the  connection  with  the  Union 
passed  by  the  southern  States  in  the  Civil  War  were 
in  several  instances  preceded  by  expressions  of  the 
greatest  devotion  to  the  Union  and  followed  by  expres 
sions  of  the  greatest  regret  at  parting  from  it. 

.But  the  Great  Debate  was  by  no  means  finished. 
Webster  replied  again,  addressing  himself  to  the  new 
phase  of  the  nullification  argument  which  Hayne  had 
attempted.  He  had  no  difficulty  in  destroying  it;  for 
Hayne  had  ruined  his  own  argument  by  saying  that  the 
general  government  was  one  of  the  parties  to  the 
compact. 

"  For  the  purpose  of  erecting  the  Constitution  on  the  basis 
of  a  compact,  the  gentleman  considers  the  States  as  parties  to 
that  compact;  but  as  soon  as  his  compact  is  made,  then  he 
chooses  to  consider  the  General  Government,  which  is  the 
offspring  of  that  compact,  not  its  offspring,  but  one  of  its 
parties;  and  so,  being  a  party,  has  not  the  power  of  judging 
on  the  terms  of  compact.  Pray,  Sir,  in  what  school  is  such 
reasoning  as  this  taught?"  .  .  . 

"  For  the  same  reason,  Sir,  if  I  were  now  to  concede  to 
the  gentleman  his  principal  propositions,  viz.,  that  the  Constitu 
tion  is  a  compact  between  States,  the  question  would  still  be, 
what  provision  is  made  in  this  compact  to  settle  points  of 
disputed  or  contested  power,  that  shall  come  into  controversy? 
And  this  question  would  still  be  answered,  and  conclusively 
answered,  by  the  Constitution  itself.  .  .  .  The  Constitution 
declares  that  the  laws  of  Congress  shall  be  the  supreme  laws 
of  the  land.  No  construction  is  necessary  here.  It  declares 
also  with  equal  plainness  and  precision  that  the  judicial  power 
of  the  United  States  shall  extend  to  every  case  arising  under 
the  laws  of  Congress." 

This  was  bringing  the  question  back  to  the  words 
of  the  Constitution.  The  nullification  argument  was 
always  flying  from  the  words  and  arguing  on  supposi 
tion  and  general  or  metaphysical  principles. 

"  The  gentleman  says,  if  there  be  such  a  power  of  final 
decision  in  the  General  Government,  he  asks  for  the  grant  of 
that  power.  Well,  Sir,  I  show  him  the  grant — I  turn  him  to 

274 


THE  REPLY  TO  HAYNE 

the  very  words — I  show  him  that  the  laws  of  Congress  are 
made  supreme;  and  that  the  judicial  power  extends,  by  express 
words,  to  the  interpretation  of  these  laws.  Instead  of  an 
swering  this  he  retreats  into  the  general  reflection,  that  it 
must  result,  from  the  nature  of  things,  that  the  States  being 
parties  must  judge  for  themselves." 

In  other  words,  Hayne  had  felt  obliged  to  show  that 
the  government  was  a  mere  party  to  a  compact  and  not 
a  government,  because  if  he  once  admitted  it  to  be  a 
government,  the  words  of  the  Constitution  endowed  it 
with  powers  of  final  decision  and  made  it  obviously  a 
stronger  government  than  he  would  like  to  have  it. 

But  the  Constitution  was  not  a  compact.  It  did  not 
describe  itself  as  a  compact  made  by  the  States.  In  its 
opening  paragraph  it  declares  that  it  is  ordained  and 
established  by  the  people  of  the  United  States.  It  does 
not  even  say  that  it  is  established  by  the  people  of  the 
several  States,  but  it  declares  that  it  is  established  by 
the  people  of  the  United  States  in  the  aggregate.  It 
does  not  call  itself  a  compact,  but  a  constitution,  which 
is  quite  a  different  thing  from  a  compact. 

Webster  was  already  a  very  prominent  and  distin 
guished  man,  but  for  some  years  after  these  replies  to 
Hayne  his  popularity  throughout  the  North  and  West 
and  among  Whigs  and  union-loving  people  in  the  South 
seemed  to  become  boundless.  The  second  reply  is  said 
to  have  been  more  extensively  read  within  the  six 
months  following  its  delivery  than  any  other  speech  that 
had  been  made  in  Congress  since  the  establishment  of 
the  government.  It  was  reprinted  in  newspapers  all 
over  the  country,  and  when  that  failed  to  satisfy  the  de 
mand  thousands  of  pamphlet  copies  were  circulated. 
The  majority  of  our  people  were,  as  they  have  always 
been,  on  the  side  of  nationality  and  union;  and  from 
innumerable  sources  letters  of  congratulation,  admira 
tion  and  gratitude  poured  in  upon  Webster.  It  has 
been  given  to  few,  if  to  any  other  man,  in  history, 
to  create  such  a  situation  and  to  triumph  in  such  an 
epoch-making  crisis  by  the  mere  delivery  of  two,or  three 

275 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

speeches  in  debate.  The  oratory,  the  eloquence,  the 
wide  sympathy,  knowledge  and  experience,  the  romantic 
and  picturesque  imagination,  the  classic  and  simple  taste 
and  literary  genius  had  elevated  and  dignified  the  whole 
subject  and  had  given  it  a  place  in  the  intellect  and 
hearts  of  Americans  that  it  had  never  occupied  before. 
Thirty  years  afterwards  millions  of  northerners  laid 
down  their  lives  for  the  principles,  the  purposes  and 
the  sentiment  of  the  Reply  to  Hayne. 

Webster  had  performed  his  task;  but  the  Great  De 
bate  on  Foot's  Resolution  rolled  on  for  the  rest  of 
January,  for  February  and  March.  During  April  and 
most  of  May  other  subjects  were  taken  up.  But  for  a 
few  days  near  the  end  of  May  the  discussion  was  raised 
again  and  closed  May  22d.  In  those  periods  the  resolu 
tion  was  called  up  almost  every  day,  and  with  most 
infinite  variety  of  point  of  view  and  argument  the 
Senators  beat  over  the  whole  history  of  the  country, 
internal  improvements,  Hartford  Convention,  tariff, 
slavery,  nullification  and  secession,  refought  the  War 
of  1812  and  the  Revolution.  They  restated  the  consti 
tutional  arguments  of  Webster  and  Hayne  often  with 
new  and  enlightening  illustrations,  and  reanalyzed,  re 
drafted,  or  tore  to  pieces  the  Constitution.  Senators 
would  sometimes  begin  their  remarks  with  humorous 
statements  of  the  situation;  usually  to  the  effect  that 
they  hoped  they  would  not  be  considered  out  of  order 
if  they  occasionally  referred  to  the  resolution  before  the 
House.  As  Barton  said,  it  was  the  Senate's  saturnalia. 
It  was  a  period  of  remarkable  ability ;  and  it  is  commonly 
said  that  never  before  or  since  has  the  Senate  con 
tained  such  a  high  average  of  intellect  and  of  indepen 
dence.  It  was  this  condition  which  had  roused  Webster 
to  such  heights  of  reasoning  and  eloquence.  He  never 
could  have  delivered  such  speeches  to  an  ordinary  audi 
ence.  He  was  always  very  susceptible  to  his  hearers; 
he  always  measured  his  effort  by  them ;  and  in  the 
Senate  he  knew  that  his  utmost  effort  would  be  appre- 
•  276 


THE  REPLY  TO  HAYNE 

dated.  He  gave  it  and  there  was  no  disappointment. 
He  was  unexpectedly  rewarded  by  the  appreciation 
of  the  whole  country. 

As  this  remarkable  debate  continued  the  point  of 
order  was  raised  one  day,  possibly  as  a  joke,  that  nearly 
the  whole  thing  was  irrelevant  to  the  resolution  before 
the  House.  But  it  was  useless  to  try  to  stop  such  high- 
strung  Senators.  They  were  men  of  ideas,  full  of  the 
learning  of  lawyers,  of  the  reading  of  history,  of  the 
experience  and  studies  of  lifetimes ;  they  were  glorying 
in  their  opportunity;  and  the  chairman,  no  doubt  with 
a  smile,  overruled  the  well-taken  point  of  order. 

Benton  had  followed  Webster  in  a  speech  lasting 
three  days,  in  which  he  continued  his  onslaught  on  the 
Northeast  and  his  wooing  of  the  South.  He  attacked 
internal  improvements,  because  not  enough  money  had 
been  spent  on  them  in  the  West  and  most  of  the  money 
had  been  spent  in  the  East;  and  he  made  the  money 
spent  in  the  West  seem  small  by  leaving  out  of  the 
count  the  money  spent  in  Ohio.  He  attacked  the  Cum 
berland  road  because  it  was  not  yet  completed  and  did 
not  reach  distant  parts  of  the  West.  It  reached  only 
Ohio,  which  for  his  purposes  he  chose  to  consider  as  part 
of  the  Northeast.  Ohio  was  the  only  really  prosperous 
part  of  the  West  in  those  days.  More  money  had  been 
spent  on  it  for  internal  improvements  because  there  were 
more  people  there  and  more  reason  for  the  improve 
ments. 

Benton  was  a  vast  talker,  the  most  long-winded  of 
Senators,  hardly  a  grain  of  wheat  in  a  bushel  of  chaff. 
He  actually  went  so  far  towards  the  verge  of  silliness 
as  to  complain  of  the  appropriations  for  navy  yard, 
fortifications  and  lighthouses  as  an  injury  to  the  West,' 
because  they  were  for  the  exclusive  benefit  of  the  Atlan 
tic  coast.  Finally,  he  let  the  cat  out  of  the  bag,  and 
showed  his  arrant  sectionalism  by  announcing  that  the 
West  wanted  no  communication  with  the  East  whatever, 
no  canals  or  roads  across  the  Alleghanies.  "  Every  canal 

277 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

and  every  road,"  he  said,  "  tending  to  draw  the  com 
merce  of  the  western  States  across  the  Alleghany  Moun 
tains  is  an  injury  to  the  people  of  the  West.  They 
must  trade  with  New  Orleans  alone  and  make  that  their 
great  city."  3 

The  puerility  of  his  ideas  was  perhaps  the  reason 
why  Webster  always  ignored  him  and  thought  it  not 
worth  while  to  reply  to  arguments  which  were  their 
own  refutation.  Other  Senators  disposed  of  him. 
Sprague,  of  Maine,  in  one  of  the  best  speeches  of  the 
debate,  tore  Benton's  historical  illustrations  to  tatters. 
A  few  days  later,  Sprague's  colleague,  Senator 
Holmes,  of  the  Dartmouth  College  case,  continued  the 
service,  leaving  Benton  not  even  a  crutch  to  stand  upon. 
These  two  speeches  in  point  of  historical  research  and 
detail  were  more  valuable  than  Webster's ;  but,  of 
course,  not  capable  of  the  same  circulation  and  popu 
larity.  Sprague  was  a  Democrat,  of  Benton's  own 
party,  but  had  declined  to  accept  Jackson.  In  fact, 
Benton  was  so  extreme,  so  inaccurate  and  so  impolitic 
in  his  attacks  upon  the  North,  that  he  aroused  sec 
tionalism  more  than  even  Democrats  and  nullifiers 
thought  necessary.  Several  of  his  own  party  turned 
against  him;  and  his  own  colleague,  Barton  from  Mis 
souri,  denounced  him  for  having  lighted  the  flame  "  of 
sectional  prejudice,  local  animosity  and  civil  discord." 
There  was  a  party  in  the  West,  Barton  said,  that  called 
the  East  a  cruel  stepmother ;  but  he  did  not  belong  to  it ; 
and  in  his  opinion  "  the  Government  of  the  Union 
has  been  kind,  parental  and  indulgent  to  the  West." 
Curiously  enough,  Hayne's  colleague  said  the  same  thing 
and  denied  Hayne's  statements  that  the  West  had  been 
ill-treated  by  the  Northeast. 

This  was  brought  out  more  and  more  in  the  debate 
as  details  were  disclosed.  Holmes  called  attention  to 
the  act  of  March  2,  1821,  by  which  the  government 

"Gales  and  Seaton's  Debates,  vol.  vi,  p.  115. 
278 


THE  REPLY  TO  HAYNE 

released  $9,000,000  to  western  debtors  under  the  old 
credit  system.  Every  sixteenth  section  of  public  land 
was  given  for  school  purposes,  five  per  cent,  of  the  sales 
of  lands  was  used  for  western  roads,  lands  were  given 
for  colleges,  money  forfeited  for  non-compliance  with 
conditions  of  sales  had  been  returned,  special  favor  had 
been  shown  Missouri,  the  government  maintained  a  mili 
tary  force  there  for  escorting  the  State's  Mexican 
traders  through  the  desert. 

In  March  Senator  Johnston,  of  Louisiana,  delivered 
an  excellent  speech  in  which  he  placed  Benton  and  the 
whole  attack  upon  the  North  in  their  true  light.  "  I 
am  a  western  man,"  he  said,  "  and  the  advocate  of  west 
ern  interests ;  "  and  he  charged  Benton  with  endeavoring 
to  build  up  a  party  in  the  West  hostile  to  New  England 
and  the  Middle  States.  He  denied  Benton's  right  to 
speak  in  the  name  of  the  whole  West.  Benton,  he  said, 
was  injuring  his  own  cause  and  the  cause  of  the  West. 

"What  is  the  great  interest  of  the  Western  States  at  this 
moment?  To  obtain  some  modification  of  the  land  system 
more  favorable  to  the  settlement  of  the  West.  And  how  does 
he  propose  to  accomplish  this  object?  By  assailing  the  whole 
North,  by  charging  them  with  systematic  hostility  to  the  West 
for  more  than  forty  years.  He  has  ransacked  the  archives, 
collected  every  fact,  arrayed  every  charge,  and  presented  them 
under  the  highest  coloring,  to  prove  what  can  only  exist  in 
his  imagination — a  settled  policy,  steadily  pursued  on  the  part 
of  the  North  to  stifle  the  birth  and  cripple  the  growth  of  the 
West,  until  he  has  driven  every  member,  from  a  sense  of  pride, 
into  an  opposition  to  every  scheme  he  may  recommend." 
(Gales  and  Seaton's  Debates,  vol.  vi,  p.  277.) 

At  the  very  close  of  the  debate  Benton  got  in  an 
other  speech,  in  which  he  tried  in  vain  to  restore  some 
of  his  shattered  historical  illustrations,  assailed  Web 
ster,  and  frantically  declared  that  after  all  it  was  the 
South  and  not  the  North  that  was  the  true  friend  of  the 
West. 

The  final  result  was  that  Webster's  motion  to  post 
pone  indefinitely  the  Foot  resolution  was  carried  out  in 

279 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

a  somewhat  different  form  by  laying  the  resolution  on 
the  table.4  Benton's  graduation  bill  was  amended,  the 
part  giving  the  land  away  after  five  years  cut  out,  so  that 
the  bill  merely  made  three  prices  for  the  public  land: 
one  dollar  and  twenty-five  cents  per  acre  for  new  land, 
one  dollar  for  lands  on  the  market  for  three  years  with 
out  sale,  and  seventy-five  cents  for  such  lands  to  actual 
settlers.  In  this  form  the  bill  was  passed  by  the  south 
ern  and  western  Senators,  outvoting  the  Northeast ;  but 
the  bill  failed  in  the  House  of  Representatives  and 
never  became  a  law.5 

There  is  said  to  have  been  considerable  demand 
throughout  the  country  for  the  speeches  of  very  nearly 
all  the  Senators  who  spoke  at  any  length.  This  de 
mand,  no  doubt,  kept  the  debate  going  and  roused  the 
ambition  of  the  Senators.  The  people  felt  that  they 
were  being  educated ;  and  to  read  through  the  debate 
to-day  is  a  liberal  education.  But  of  all  the  speeches 
none  are  now  remembered  or  known  except  two, 
Hayne's  and  Webster's;  and  of  these  Webster's  is  the 
only  one  that  is  still  read.  Most  people,  even  biogra 
phers  of  the  two  men,  seem  to  know  of  Hayne's  speech 
only  through  what  Webster  said  of  it. 

It  is  a  most  striking  illustration  of  literary  genius, 
the  divine  gift,  the  power  of  him  who  speaks  winged 
words,  as  Homer  would  say ;  and  Kipling  has  illustrated 
it  in  the  prehistoric  fable  of  the  tribe  who,  finding  one  of 
their  number,  who  could  speak  these  words  that  "  lived 
and  walked  about,"  killed  him  as  too  dangerous  to  safe 
mediocrity. 

4  Journal  of  the  Senate,  ist  Session  2ist  Congress,  p.  316. 

5  Gales  and  Seaton's  Debates,  ist  Sess.  2ist  Congress,  vol. 
vi,  pp.  426,  427;  House  Journal,  ist  Sess.  2ist  Congress,  p.  700; 
Journal  of  Senate,  ist  Sess.  2ist  Congress,  pp.  291,  292. 


280 


XI 

THE     WHITE     MURDER     TRIAL — JACKSONIAN    POLITICS — 
BANK   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES MARSH  FIELD 

-  WEBSTER'S  heavy  labors  in  the  Supreme  Court  and 
the  Senate  and  the  thunders  of  applause  for  his  speeches 
on  nullification  were  still  at  their  height  when  we  catch 
a  glirrtpse  of  this  many-sided  man  indulging  himself 
in  one  of  his  favorite  tastes  as  if  he  were  a  person  of 
elegant  leisure  and  nothing  particular  had  happened. 
He  was  reading  Moore's  "  Life  of  Byron,"  and  wonder 
ing  how  he  could  get  a  copy  of  Dr.  Johnson's  edition  of 
Shakespeare. 

Farming,  sport  and  his  studies  in  literature  must 
have  always  occupied  a  large  part  of  his  waking 
thoughts.  Very  likely  this  was  the  food  by  which  his 
mind  really  lived  and  which  gave  him  freshness  to  per 
form  such  Herculean  efforts  of  intellect. 

In  that  summer  of  1830  following  the  Reply  to 
Hayne,  he  took  part  as  counsel  for  the  prosecution  in  the 
White  murder  trial  in  Salem,  Massachusetts,  in  which 
he  made  a  speech,  passages  of  which  are  certainly  equal 
to  anything  in  the  Reply  to  Hayne,  and,  in  the  opinion 
of  some,  superior.  He  was  in  wonderful  form  for 
eloquence  during  that  year  1830. 

Joseph  White,  a  wealthy  merchant,  eighty-two  years 
old,  had  been  found  murdered  in  his  bed  one  morning 
in  Salem,  with  thirteen  stabs  and  a  blow,  as  of  a  club, 
on  the  head.  It  was  a  murder  which  would  now,  in 
our  time  of  almost  universal  homicide  and  only  two 
per  cent,  of  convictions,  attract  only  passing  attention  ; 
but  in  that  day  of  comparative  freedom  from  such 
crimes  it  created  an  excitement  which  we  can  hardly 
understand.  The  people  of  the  town  were  so  astounded 
at  such  an  event  that  for  days  carpenters  and  smiths 

281 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

could  be  heard  along  all  the  streets  putting  bolts  and 
fastenings  to  doors  and  windows.  "  Many  for  defence 
furnished  themselves  with  cutlasses,  firearms  and  watch 
dogs." a  A  vigilance  committee  was  appointed  and 
the  Legislature  ordered  a  special  session  of  the  Supreme 
Court  to  try  the  persons  suspected. 

The  curious  circumstances  of  the  discovery  of  the 
murderers  and  the  details  of  the  trial  cannot  be  given 
space  in  this  volume.  One  of  the  most  striking  passages 
from  Webster's  speech  has  already  been  quoted  in  Chap 
ter  II.  Nor  can  we  go  deeply  into  the  question  whether 
or  not  he  received  a  fee  from  the  family  of  the  mur 
dered  man  to  assist  the  prosecution.  Such  fees  were 
forbidden  by  statute.  Webster's  assistance  had  been 
asked  by  the  Attorney-General  and  the  Solicitor-General, 
who  were  advanced  in  years.  When  the  question  was 
raised  in  the  course  of  the  trial  Webster  told  the  court 
that  he  had  received  no  fee  in  that  trial  and  expected 
none.  Apparently  he  was  neither  offered  nor  promised 
any  fee  in  any  of  the  trials  of  the  different  defendants ; 
but  after  the  trial  of  one  of  them,  the  principal,  he  ap 
pears,  according  to  the  biography  by  his  literary  execu 
tor,  Mr.  Curtis,  to  have  accepted  a  fee  from  the  family 
of  the  murdered  man.  The  trials  were  a  great  excite 
ment  of  the  day,  passages  from'  Webster's  speeches  to 
the  jury  have  been  reprinted  and  quoted  innumerable 
times,  and  added  greatly  to  his  reputation,  which,  indeed, 
was  in  one  sense  all  made  in  this  year  1830.  It  was 
certainly  raised  to  a  most  unexpected  height. 

From  the  remotest  corners  of  the  Union  came  let 
ters  of  admiration,  requests  from  every  kind  of  organ 
ization,  from  fishing  clubs  up  to  Bible  societies,  desiring 
to  enroll  him  among  their  honorary  members.  His  say 
ings  and  doings  were  becoming  household  words ;  in 
numerable  anecdotes  of  his  eloquence,  his  legal  victories 
and  his  powerful  character  were  circulating  far  and 


1  Works,  Edition  of  1851,  vol.  vi,  p.  42. 
282 


JACKSONIAN  POLITICS 

wide;  almost  every  child  knew  his  opinions  and  prin 
ciples;  there  was  no  man  in  the  country,  not  even  Jack 
son  or  Clay,  who  was  any  better  known ;  and  those  two 
remarkable  men,  though  more  popular  perhaps  in  the 
ordinary  sense  among  the  masses,  failed  to  arouse  the 
admiration  and  wonder  which  Webster's  high  talents 
and  genius  drew  from  even  his  opponents.  All  this 
overwhelming  distinction  pointed  one  way,  and  many 
of  the  letters  he  received  frankly  informed  him  that  he 
must  become  the  candidate  for  the  Presidency  against 
General  Jackson  when  that  popular  idol  went  before 
the  public  for  a  second  term. 

The  Jacksonian  methods  as  well  as  the  methods  of 
the  nullifiers  had  destroyed  the  era  of  good  feeling,  and 
political  parties  were  forming  again  and  looking  about 
for  leaders  and  candidates.  The  old  Democratic  party,j 
Republican  as  it  had  called  itself,  the  only  party  in: 
existence  during  the  era  of  good  feeling,  was  now; 
split  into  two  divisions.  One  division  was  following 
the  Jacksonian  personality  and  leadership  and  the  nulli 
fication  and  State  sovereignty  ideas  of  Calhoun,  and  the 
other  was  following  the  ideas  of  Webster  and  Clay  on 
protective  tariff,  internal  improvements  and  strong 
nationality  and  Republicanism  as  opposed  to  mere 
Democracy.  The  first  division  had  now  accepted  the 
name  of  Democrats  instead  of  Republican.  The  second 
division  had  given  themselves  the  name  of  National  Re 
publicans  and  gathered  to  their  fold  the  people  like 
Webster,  who  many  years  before  had  been  Federalists. 
They  were,  in  fact,  the  legitimate  successors  of  the 
Federalists.  Later  they  were  called  Whigs,  and  at  the 
outbreak  of  the  Civil  War  were  succeeded  by  what  is 
still  known  as  the  Union  Republican  party. 

Webster  and  Clay's  party,  the  National  Republican, 
was  founded  on  the  protective  tariff,  internal  improve 
ments,  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  and,  of  course, 
the  integrity  of  the  Union  and  opposition  to  nullifica 
tion.  Jackson  and  the  Democrats  opposed  all  these 

283 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

except  that  Jackson  himself  and  some  of  his  party  were 
Union  men  and  enemies  of  the  southern  milliners.  But 
Jackson's  opposition  to  nullification  seemed  to  arise 
more  from  his  imperious  temper  than  from  any  belief 
that  nullification  was  a  constitutional  error.  He  be 
lieved  himself  to  be  the  government,  and  he  would 
brook  no  attack  which  was  so  obviously  an  overthrow 
of  his  own  power.  He  regarded  the  national  govern 
ment  as  a  pure  democracy  rather  than  as  a  republic  of 
checks  and  balances  and  fixed  departments.  He  be 
lieved  himself  to  have  been  elected  by  the  great  Demo 
cratic  majority  for  the  purpose  of  sweeping  everything 
before  him  and  turning  everything  his  way  and  their 
way  while  his  four  years  of  power  lasted.  He  de 
nounced  nullification  because  it  did  not  suit  him;  but 
when  the  Supreme  Court  made  a  decision  that  did  not 
suit  him,  as  in  the  dispute  between  Georgia  and  the 
Cherokee  Indians,  he  refused  to  allow  the  decision  to  be 
executed,  and  openly  set  the  court  and  its  judgment  at 
defiance.  He  recognized  no  final  arbiter  of  what  the 
Constitution  meant  except  himself. 

Henry  Clay's  popularity  and  claims  to  a  nomination 
at  the  hands  of  the  National  Republicans  were  about  as 
strong  as  Webster's.  Both  men  regarded  the  nomina 
tion  as  a  very  distinguished  honor;  but  would  do  noth 
ing  to  interfere  with  each  other.  The  National  Re 
publican  nominating  convention  was  to  meet  in  Balti 
more.  But  as  time  approached  a  curious  disturbance 
of  the  political  situation  arose  from  the  appearance  of 
a  third  party,  the  anti-Masons,  one  of  the  most  curious 
freaks  of  our  history.  A  certain  person  named  Morgan, 
who  had  been  a  Free  Mason  and  had  withdrawn  from 
the  society,  was  believed  to  have  been  abducted  and  mvtr- 
dered  in  1826  at  Batavia,  New  York,  to  prevent  his 
revealing  the  secrets  of  the  order.  It  is  now  generally 
believed  that  there  was  no  truth  in  the  story  of  his 
murder;  but  for  several  years  after  1826,  increasing 
numbers  of  people  put  full  faith  in  it.  A  belief  gained 

284 


JACKSONIAN  POLITICS 

ground  that  the  Masonic  order  was  a  danger  to  society 
and  to  American  government;  and  soon  this  belief  be 
came  the  foundation  of  a  political  party  that  was  strong 
enough  in  1831  to  decide  to  nominate  candidates  of  its 
own  for  the  Presidency. 

These  anti-Masons  seemed  to  draw  their  recruits 
very  largely  from  the  ranks  of  the  National  Republi 
cans,  and  they  threatened  to  upset  all  calculations  of  the 
friends  of  Webster  as  well  as  of  the  friends  of  Clay. 
Webster  was  not  a  Mason  and  rather  opposed  to  secret 
societies.  Clay  was  a  Mason,  an  "adhering  Mason," 
in  the  slang  of  the  time,  because  in  spite  of  the  supposed 
revelations  he  refused  to  renounce  Masonry  and  with 
draw  from  his  lodge. 

Clay's  possibilities  of  election  being  thus  weakened 
and  the  anti-Masons  inclining  to  nominate  Mr.  Wirt,  as 
their  own  candidate,  it  was  suggested  to  Webster  that 
he  discourage  the  nomination  of  Mr.  Clay  and  at  the 
same  time  remind  the  anti-Mason  leaders  that  no  one 
but  himself  had  any  chance  of  being  elected  against 
General  Jackson.  He  would,  in  this  way,  it  was  urged, 
probably  secure  the  nomination  of  both  the  anti-Masons 
and  of  the  National  Republicans,  a  combination  which 
would  have  excellent  chances  of  success  against  Jack 
son's  party.  But  Webster  declined.  He  believed  in 
the  principles  of  the  National  Republican  party.  He 
would  not  be  a  candidate  on  the  platform  of  any  other 
party.  He  would  not  mix  up  the  principles  of  the 
National  Republicans  with  the  proscriptions  and  tem 
porary  narrowness  of  the  anti-Masons.  He  would  not 
for  the  sake  of  winning  half  a  victory  for  the  National 
Republicans  or  a  whole  victory  for  himself  consent  to 
the  offering  of  such  concessions  to  the  anti-Masons  as 
would  enable  them  to  dictate  the  candidate  for  the  whole 
opposition  and  reduce  the  contest  to  their  own  level. 

He  had  been  for  some  time  contemplating  a  trip  to 
the  western  States.  He  had  many  pressing  invitations ; 
and  it  would  have  been  a  triumphal  progress  of  speech- 

285 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

making  and  entertainment.  But  it  would  be,  in  effect, 
an  invasion  of  Clay's  region;  it  would  be  construed  as 
a  move  against  him;  and  though  anticipating  much  pleas 
ure  and  information  from  such  an  excursion,  Webster 
gave  it  up.  He  took  the  ground  that  even  if  Mr.  Clay 
had  been  weakened  as  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency 
by  the  anti-Mason  defection,  he  had,  nevertheless,  a 
large  and  devoted  following  all  over  the  country  who 
would  be  much  disturbed  and  might  break  up  the  newly- 
formed  National  Republican  party  if  it  failed  to  nomi 
nate  him.  That  party  must  at  all  hazards  be  preserved 
as  the  only  one  competent  to  oppose  the  Jacksonian 
heresies. 

The  National  Republican  convention  which  met  in 
Baltimore  in  the  summer  of  1831  nominated  Mr.  Clay 
for  President  and  Mr.  John  Sargeant,  of  Philadelphia, 
for  Vice-President.  The  anti-Masons  nominated  Mr. 
William  Wirt;  and  both  Republican  and  anti-Mason 
candidates  were  overwhelmingly  defeated  in  the  election 
of  1832  by  the  Jacksonian  Democrats.  "  Old  Hickory  " 
was  again  President,  with  his  apt  pupil  and  friend, 
Martin  Van  Buren,  for  Vice-President. 

In  this  year  1831  the  agitation  in  the  North  against 
the  negro  slavery  in  the  southern  States  may  be  said  to 
have  begun.  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  a  Boston  news 
paper  editor,  began  his  crusade  in  this  year,  and  the 
Anti-Slavery  Society  was  formed.  He  and  his  followers 
were  soon  given  the  name  Abolitionists ;  other  societies 
were  organized ;  and  though  not  attracting  very  serious 
attention  in  1831,  the  movement  soon  influenced  the 
whole  political  thought  of  the  time  and  deeply  affected 
Webster's  political  career. 

Jackson's  reign  of  eight  years  was  a  period  of  re 
markable  development  in  the  United  States,  and  a  time 
when  many  powerful  elements  of  our  modern  civilization 
besides  the  anti-slavery  movement  got  under  way.  In 
the  beginning  of  Jackson's  first  term  there  were  no 
railroads  in  America.  At  the  end  of  his  second 

286 


JACKSONIAN  POLITICS 

term  there  were  over  1500  miles  in  operation.  The 
screw  propeller  was  introduced  on  steamboats  instead 
of  the  side  wheel ;  coal  came  into  use  on  locomo 
tives  and  steamboats  in  place  of  wood ;  friction  matches 
were  invented;  public  schools  were  adopted  in  almost 
every  State;  the  normal  school  system  for  training 
teachers  was  begun ;  and  also  the  modern  form  of  news 
paper,  cheap,  of  wide  circulation,  and  intense  activity 
in  gathering  news. 

Deeply  grateful  to  President  Jackson  for  his  whole-/ 
souled    condemnation   of   the   nullifiers,    Webster   had| 
always  been  somewhat  loath  to  "  break  ground  "  against 
him ;    but  now,  throughout  this  session  of  Congress, — 
from  December,  1831,  to  July,  1832, — both  Webster  and 
his  party,  the  National  Republicans,  were  arrayed  in 
opposition  to  the  choleric  old  soldier  President. 

Jackson  was  credited  in  the  popular  mind  with 
much  honesty  and  sincerity  of  purpose.  But  whether 
he  was  any  more  so  than  other  Presidents  or  people  may 
be  questioned.  He  was  tricky  enough ;  but  managed  to 
have  his  tricks,  like  the  Clay  "  bargain  and  corruption," 
performed  by  others  while  he  stood  aloof  as  the  innocent 
but  daring  and  audacious  hero  of  the  people.  His  pic 
turesque  violence  of  speech  and  action  was  the  foun 
dation  of  his  popularity;  from  this  headlong  violence 
the  masses  inferred  that  he  must  be  honest ;  and  finding, 
much  to  his  own  surprise,  that  his  supposed  failing  was 
a  source  of  political  power,  the  old  fellow  worked  it 
to  the  utmost  in  all  manner  of  poses.  This  violence  had 
given  him  his  first  distinction  in  the  frontier  life  of 
Tennessee,  where,  when  a  judge,  he  is  said  to  have 
rushed  from  the  court  room  and  seized  with  his  own 
hands  a  ruffian  whom  the  sheriff  hesitated  to  arrest. 
In  Webster's  visit  with  Ticknor  to  Monticello  in  1824, 
Jefferson  told  him  that  Jackson,  when  a  Senator,  could 
never  make  a  speech,  because  of  the  violence  of  his 
feelings.  "  I  have  seen  him  attempt  it  repeatedly," 
said  Jefferson,  "  and  choke  with  rage." 

287 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

Such  a  man,  when  President,  naturally  begot  violence 
all  about  him.  His  dismissal  of  thousands  of  office 
holders  merely  to  reward  his  own  followers  was  alone 
a  large  cause  for  indignation  and  resentment.  But  in 
addition  to  that  he  put  violence  into  everything,  small 
matters  as  well  as  great.  He  could  not  make  the  most 
trifling  decision  or  suggestion  without  posing  in  an 
almost  insane  desire  to  crush  and  destroy  every  one 
that  he  suspected  of  opposing  it  His  opponents  could 
be  as  violent  in  language  as  he,  and  there  have  conse 
quently  been  few  periods  in  our  history  when  political 
discussion  has  been  so  acrimonious  and  vindictive. 

Of  the  three  objects  of  Jackson's  fury — the  protec 
tive  tariff,  internal  improvements,  and  the  United  States 
Bank — the  Bank  received  the  largest  share  of  his  atten 
tion.  In  the  debates  on  continuing  the  existence  of  the 
United  States  Bank,  Webster  took  a  prominent  position 
against  the  administration.  The  Bank  had  been  char 
tered  in  1816,  and  there  had  been  a  similar  bank  char 
tered  in  1791,  both  of  them  regarded  as  an  almost 
absolute  necessity  for  a  new  country  and  a  new  gov 
ernment.  The  government  was  growing  rich,  had  vast 
sums  to  hold  and  disburse,  but  no  place  to  keep  this 
money  except  the  pockets  of  officials  or  various  private 
banks,  of  uncertain  reliability,  scattered  over  the  country. 
How  was  the  revenue  to  be  collected  through  all  the 
post  offices,  land  offices  and  custom  houses  scattered 
over  thousands  of  miles  with  inadequate  communication  ? 
How,  for  example,  was  the  money  collected  at  the  im 
portant  custom  house  at  New  Orleans  to  reach  Wash 
ington?  How  was  the  government  at  Washington  to 
make  a  payment  at  New  Orleans? 

A  special  corporation  called  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States  was,  therefore,  created  by  Congress  to  be  both 
a  public  institution  for  the  deposit  and  disbursement  of 
the  public  money,  and  at  the  same  time  a  private  cor 
poration  for  its  own  profit.  By  its  branches  all  over 
the  country  it  would  collect  the  public  money  from  cus- 


BANK  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES 

torn  houses,  post  offices,  and  land  offices,  and  by  these 
same  branches  make  payments  for  the  government  in 
distant  places  in  the  far  West  and  South.  It  was  bound 
to  transmit  government  funds  from  one  place  to  an 
other  without  expense ;  so  that  a  dollar  in  New  Hamp 
shire  or  Maine  would  be  a  dollar  at  St.  Louis  or  New 
Orleans.  By  issuing  notes  of  a  recognized  value 
throughout  the  whole  country  the  Bank  would  also 
tend  to  correct  the  very  serious  evil  of  a  currency 
largely  composed  of  the  notes  of  State  banks  of  varying 
value.  We  have  so  long  been  accustomed  to  a  uniform 
currency  all  over  the  Union  that  we  can  now  hardly 
appreciate  the  nuisance  and  absurdity  of  those  State 
bank  notes  varying  in  value  in  different  localities.  Our 
modern  business  would  be  impossible  under  such  a 
system. 

There  were  about  four  hundred  of  these  State  banks 
and  the  notes  of  each  were  necessarily  limited  and  local 
in  their  credit.  They  could  not  be  used  to  send  money 
or  make  payment  at  any  distance.  It  was  a  form  of 
sectionalism  which  made  a  most  serious  problem  for  the 
people  of  that  time.  The  United  States  Bank  had 
largely  solved  it  because  its  notes  of  the  same  value 
everywhere  could  be  used  for  making  payments  at  a 
distance.  In  this  way  the  Bank  was  steadily  relegating 
the  State  bank  notes"  to  the  merest  local  uses. 

The  Bank  was  intended  also  to  serve  the  function 
of  lending  money  to  the  government  in  time  of  need. 
All  these  functions  were  very  important  in  the  crude, 
in  fact,  barbaric  condition  of  our  finances  in  those  early 
days;  and  nowhere  do  we  find  this  usefulness  of  the 
Bank  so  well  and  clearly  set  forth  as  in  Webster's 
speeches.  The  charter  of  the  Bank  was  for  twenty 
years,  and  would  expire  in  1836.  A  bill  to  renew  the 
charter  was  introduced  in  this  session  of  1832,  so  that 
if  the  Bank  was  not  to  be  continued,  four  years  would 
be  given  it  to  wind  up  its  affairs.  This  gave  Jackson 
the  opportunity  he  had  long  desired,  of  destroying  it. 
19  289 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

It  had  always  been  an  unpopular  institution  among 
the  radical  Democrats.  They  were  jealous  of  its  power ; 
they  believed  it  to  be  a  source  of  corruption  which 
would  grow  worse  with  time;  that  deposits  of  govern 
ment  money  in  it  were  manipulated  to  enrich  its  offi 
cers,  and  that  its  managers  tried  to  punish  or  reward 
public  men  for  opposing  or  helping  it.  In  the  many 
years  that  have  since  elapsed  we  have  had  vast  experi 
ence  with  powerful  financial  institutions,  the  insurance 
companies,  the  Standard  Oil,  and  innumerable  trusts 
and  monopolies,  and  in  the  light  of  all  this  it  seems 
as  if  the  Democratic  view  of  the  Bank  was  a  sound  one. 
The  Bank  had  been  very  valuable,  had,  in  fact,  been 
almost  a  necessity  for  many  years  to  correct  the  irregu 
larities  in  the  varying  currency  of  the  States;  and 
it  was  still  very  valuable.  Such  institutions  as  private 
banks,  more  or  less  connected  with  government  finance, 
were  familiar  in  European  history.  But  in  the  peculiar 
conditions  of  American  politics  ours  was  likely  to  be 
come  a  colossus,  with  too  much  power  for  one  institu 
tion  and  too  much  of  an  interference  in  politics.  With 
the  increasing  wealth  and  population  of  the  country  the 
Bank  might  become  more  powerful  than  the  government. 
The  Democratic  suspicion  of  its  present  corruption  and 
interference  in  politics  might  be  exaggerated,  but  in 
time  the  exaggerations  would  be  simple  facts.  The 
opposition  was  already  accusing  Jackson  of  having  at 
tempted  to  control,  for  his  own  advantage,  the  election 
of  a  board  of  managers  of  one  of  the  Bank's  branches. 
The  Bank  would  evidently  soon  become  an  object  of 
control  for  both  parties ;  it  would  become  more  inju 
rious  than  useful ;  and  the  sooner  a  simpler  method  was 
devised  to  take  its  place  the  better.  But  to  invent  a 
simpler  and  less  injurious  method  was  the  difficulty. 

To  Webster  and  the  National  Republicans,  and,  in 
deed,  to  the  majority  of  both  Houses  of  Congress,  in  this 
year  1832,  any  danger  of  corruption  or  misuse  of  the 
Bank  seemed  very  slight,  and  they  voted  to  renew-its 

290 


BANK  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES 

charter.  Webster  remained  a  bank  man  to  the  end  of 
his  days,  and  was  supported  in  this  by  a  very  large 
part  of  the  most  conservative  and  best  informed  people 
of  the  time.  They  could  see  no  prospect  of  success 
in  any  substitute  or  in  any  other  method. 

When,  however,  the  bill  renewing  the  charter  of 
the  Bank  was  brought  to  Jackson  for  his  signature,  he 
vetoed  it  on  the  ground  that  Congress  had  no  constitu 
tional  authority  to  create  a  bank,  that  the  Bank  was  a 
private  monopoly,  dangerous  to  liberty  and  likely  to  pass 
into  the  control  of  foreigners  in  times  of  war  through 
their  ownership  in   its  stock.     It  was,  no  doubt,  well 
for  us  to  get  rid  of  the  Bank ;  and  in  this  respect  it  has 
been  said  of  Jackson  that  his  instinct  was  right,  although 
his  reasons  and  violence  were  wrong.     As  to  his  in 
stinct  being  right,  you  could  have  said  the  same  of  any 
man  you  picked  up  in  the  street  and  made  President.     A 
President  of  the  United   States   is   supposed  to  have 
something  more  than  instinct.     He  is  supposed  to  be 
capable  of  reasoning  and  of  giving  correct  reasons  for 
his  conduct.     Jackson's  reasons  were  shown  by  Web 
ster,   and  are  generally   admitted  to  have  been   mere 
demagogue   absurdities,   mere   posing  in   his   assumed 
character  of  the  valiant  protector  of  the  poor  against 
the  rich.     The  Bank  had  been  accepted  as  constitutional 
by  lawyers  and  statesmen  for  forty  years.     The  Su 
preme  Court  had  held  that  Congress  had  full  authority 
to  incorporate  a  bank  as  a  necessary  means  of  carrying 
on  the  functions  of  government,  and  regulating  the  coin 
age.    Few,  if  any,  persons,  even  in  the  President's  own 
party,  had  any  doubt  on  the  subject.     But  in  "  Old 
Hickory's  "  mind,  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  was 
nothing.     He  detested  the  principle  that  the  Supreme 
Court  was  the  final  arbiter  or  interpreter  of  the  Consti 
tution,  and  in  his  veto  message  he  set  forth  his  theory 
that  there  was  no  final  arbiter  of  what  was  and  what  was 
not  constitutional,  but  that  each  department  of  the  gov 
ernment  could  interpret  the  Constitution  for  itself.  "  The 

291 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

opinion  of  the  judges,"  he  said,  "  has  no  more  authority 
over  Congress  than  the  opinion  of  Congress  has  over 
the  judges ;  and  on  that  point  the  President  is  inde 
pendent  of  both."  In  other  words,  although  he  had 
taken  an  oath  to  execute  the  laws,  he  might  decide 
that  some  of  them  were  unconstitutional  and  refuse  to 
execute  them,  although  the  Supreme  Court  had  declared 
them  constitutional. 

Legal  confusion,  social  disorder,  and  anarchy  would 
be  the  inevitable  consequences  of  Jackson's  principles 
if  once  established.  He  developed  most  evil  influences 
in  American  political  life.  He  was,  as  Webster  showed, 
a  most  potent  influence  to  inflame  the  poor  against  the 
rich;  and  he  and  his  followers  spread  this  feeling  in 
America,  together  with  a  belief  in  the  virtue  of  igno 
rance,  illiteracy,  coarseness,  and  trickery,  as  a  means 
of  government  against  which  Webster  struggled  with  all 
his  might  and  our  better  statesmen  have  been  strug- 
gling  ever  since.  Webster's  speech  was  an  admirable 
one,  full  of  dignity  and  respect  for  the  President,  a 
striking  contrast  to  the  scurrility  and  crude  abuse  of  the 
times ;  but  step  by  step,  with  much  courtesy,  destroying 
the  President's  argument  and  setting  forth  that  balanced 
theory  of  constitutional  interpretation,  with  the  Supreme 
Court  as  the  accepted  interpreter,  which  is  now  univer 
sally  accepted  by  American  lawyers. 

But  the  Bank  could  not  be  rechartered.  The  bill 
could  not  be  passed  over  the  President's  veto,  and  four 
years  later,  when  its  charter  expired,  it  went  out  of 
existence.  Many  years  of  disordered  finance,  panics 
and  bankruptcies  followed,  while  we  struggled  with  the 
Jacksonian  substitutes  of  pet  banks  and  other  schemes 
until  we  settled  down  to  the  modern  sub-treasury  plan 
and  national  banks  secured  by  government  bonds.  We 
were  well  rid  of  the  Bank,  it  must  be  confessed ;  and  the 
process  by  which  we  finally  found  our  financial  level 
was  perhaps  no  more  painful  and  destructive  than  other 
processes  in  nature  or  the  wars  by  which  great  political 
questions  are  often  settled. 

292 


BANK  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES 

In  the  year  1832  a  question  arose  which  brought  out 
Webster's  broad  and  national  point  of  view.  Mr.  Van 
Buren,  when  Secretary  of  State,  some  three  years  be 
fore,  had  prepared  instructions  for  Mr.  McLane,  then 
going  as  minister  to  England,  and  in  these  instruc 
tions,  which  related  to  our  trade  with  the  British  West 
India  colonies,  Van  Buren  had  commented  with  con 
siderable  asperity  on  the  conduct  of  his  political  oppo 
nents  in  the  late  administration  of  John  Quincy  Adams, 
and  had  even  instructed  McLane  to  remind  the  British 
government  that  a  different  set  of  persons  were  now  in 
power  who  would  better  understand  how  to  negotiate 
with  the  British  Crown.  This  carping  partisan  tone 
in  a  diplomatic  paper,  which  was  supposed  to  emanate 
from  the  people  and  the  nation  and  not  from  a  faction, 
was  considered  very  outrageous  by  Webster  and  the 
Whigs.  But  no  opportunity  for  a  conspicuous  punish 
ment  came  until  1832,  when  President  Jackson  appointed 
Mr.  Van  Buren  minister  to  England,  and  he  had  gone 
abroad  accredited  to  the  British  Government  before  his 
appointment  could  be  acted  upon  by  the  Senate.  The 
Senate  rejected  the  nomination  and  forced  upon  Mr. 
Van  Buren  the  mortification  of  returning  home.  It 
is  supposed  to  have  been  a  political  mistake  on  the  part 
of  the  Whigs,  because  it  made  a  martyr  of  Van  Buren 
and  contributed  to  the  popularity  which  afterwards 
enabled  him  to  attain  the  Presidency.  But  as  a  con 
spicuous  punishment,  it  no  doubt  enforced  upon  all 
future  secretaries  of  state,  ministers,  ambassadors  and 
consuls  the  importance  of  remembering-  that  they  repre 
sent  their  country  and  not  a  party.  Webster's  tone  was 
a  fine  specimen  of  that  upbuilding  of  a  national  spirit 
to  which  he  was  devoted. 

"  Sir,  I  submit  to  you,  and  to  the  candor  of  all  just  men, 
if  I  am  not  right  in  saying  that  the  pervading  topic  through  the 
whole  is,  not  American  rights,  not  American  interests,  not 
American  defence,  but  denunciation  of  past  pretensions  of 
our  Government,  reflections  on  the  past  Administration,  and 
exultation  and  a  loud  claim  of  merit  for  the  Administration 

293 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

now  in  power.  Sir,  I  would  forgive  mistakes;  I  would  pardon 
the  want  of  information;  I  would  pardon  almost  anything 
where  I  saw  true  patriotism  and  sound  American  feeling;  but 
I  cannot  forgive  the  sacrifice  of  this  feeling  to  mere  party.  I 
cannot  concur  in  sending  abroad  a  public  agent  who  has  not 
conceptions  so  large  and  liberal  as  to  feel  that,  in  the  presence 
of  foreign  courts,  amidst  the  monarchies  of  Europe,  he  is  to 
stand  up  for  his  country,  and  his  whole  country;  that  no  jot 
nor  tittle  of  her  honor  is  to  suffer  in  his  hands ;  that  he  is  not 
to  allow  others  to  reproach  either  his  Government  or  his 
country,  and  far  less  is  he  himself  to  reproach  either ;  that  he 
is  to  have  no  objects  in  his  eye  but  American  objects,  and  no 
heart  in  his  bosom  but  an  American  heart;  and  that  he  is  to 
forget  self,  and  forget  party,  to  forget  every  sinister  and 
narrow  feeling,  in  his  proud  and  lofty  attachment  to  the  republic 
whose  commission  he  bears." 

From  these  questions  we  can  willingly  turn  for  relief 
to  the  Thomas  farm  at  Marshfield,  on  the  coast  of 
Massachusetts,  where  for  eight  years  the  Websters 
had  spent  part  of  almost  every  summer.  It  now  be 
came  theirs  by  purchase.  Captain  Thomas  had  become 
too  old  for  the  management  and  it  was  considered  best 
both  for  himself  and  his  children  that  he  should  sell 
the  place.  The  intimacy  and  friendliness  of  the  fami 
lies  living  together  so  many  summers  had  been  unusual, 
and  now  that  the  place  had  become  his  own  Webster 
insisted  on  Captain  Thomas  and  his  wife  remaining 
there,  which  they  did  until  the  death  of  the  captain  in 
1837.  It  was  no  part  of  the  bargain,  but  simply  Web 
ster's  wish  and  characteristic  of  his  methods.  He  con 
tinued  to  speak  of  the  place  as  if  it  still  belonged  to  the 
captain.  "  Captain  Thomas  and  Mrs.  Thomas,"  he 
would  say,  "  are  a  part  of  Marshfield,  and  it  can  never 
be  the  same  without  them."  At  the  same  time  he  was 
paying  for  everything ;  and  lavishing  immense  sums  on 
buildings,  improvements  and  the  purchase  of  additional 
land. 

Although  Marshfield  was  the  name  of  the  township, 
it  soon  came  to  mean  in  history  and  literature  Webster's 
farm.  The  distinguished  men  of  that  age  were  known 

294 


MARSHFIELD 

by  their  farms  and  country  places  as  much  as  by  their 
statecraft;  and  it  would  be  as  difficult  to  separate  their 
characters  from  their  chosen  retreats  as  to  separate 
Washington  from  Mount  Vernon.  Henry  Clay  with  his 
thoroughbreds  at  his  beloved  Ashland,  where  the  same 
strains  of  racers  are  still  bred  by  his  family;  Jefferson 
with  his  saddle  horses,  his  books  and  his  carpenter  shop 
at  Monticello;  Madison  at  Montpelier;  old  Jackson  at 
the  Hermitage;  and  Webster  at  Marshfield,  are  charac 
teristic  and  attractive  pictures  of  the  time.  Some  mod 
ern  atlases  still  mark  "  Webster  Place  "  on  the  map  of 
Massachusetts ;  and  it  has  been  said  that  a  letter  ad 
dressed  "  Daniel  Webster,  Marshfield,"  would  have 
reached  its  destination  from  any  part  of  the  world. 

Of  Jackson,  his  biographer,  Parton,  has  said  that 
farming  and  horses  were  the  only  form  of  business  he 
understood;  he  failed  at  everything  else  except  war. 
His  Hermitage  was  a  small  but  beautiful  and  most 
productive  farm  with  one  hundred  and  fifty  acres.  His 
delight  in  a  fine  cotton  field  and  his  interest  in  his 
horses,  slaves  and  friends  were  like  his  devotion  to  his 
wife,  the  redeeming  features  of  a  not  altogether  useful 
career.  His  eye,  it  is  said,  would  flash  as  in  battle,  and 
he  would  rise  almost  to  the  heights  of  eloquence  when 
examining  a  high-bred  horse  and  explaining  the  com 
bination  of  beauty  and  power  in  its  form.  The  broad 
ness  and  hospitality  of  life  at  the  Hermitage,  as  de 
scribed  by  Parton,  seem  doubly  attractive  now  in  an 
age  when  those  conditions  are  no  longer  so  easily  found, 
even  in  the  South. 

Webster's  farm,  with  acres  continually  added,  in 
cluded  irr  the  end  a  large  part  of  the  township.  The 
house  was  about  a  mile  from  the  ocean,  and  between  the 
house  and  the  shore  was  a  small  stream  or  inlet  from  the 
sea  called  Green  Harbor  River  or  Cut  River.  The  ex 
plorer  entering  the  mouth  of  this  stream  found  it  turn 
ing  northward  and  running  with  two  branches  about 
parallel  with  the  beach  for  some  two  miles,  making  hun- 

295 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

dreds  of  acres  of  green  marsh  and  meadow-lands,  the 
natural  feeding  ground  of  wild  fowl,  plover  and  snipe. 
The  ridge  of  sea  beach  was  a  rampart  to  these  meadows 
on  the  east  and  the  wooded,  stony  hills  bounded  them 
on  the  west.  At  the  foot  of  the  wooded  hills  stood  the 
Webster  house.  Another  little  stream  from  the  ocean 
farther  south  made  a  second  series  of  those  marshes, 
which  had  evidently  far  back  in  colonial  times  given  the 
name  to  the  township. 

On  the  beach,  Brant  Rock  extended  for  several  hun 
dred  yards  into  the  sea.  In  certain  winds,  especially 
northeasters,  the  brant  in  their  semi-annual  migrations 
along  the  coast  passed  near  enough  to  this  rock  to 
afford  sport;  and  even  now  they  not  infrequently  give 
the  same  opportunity.  Ducks  could  also  be  shot  for 
several  miles  out  by  means  of  boats  and  decoys ;  and 
in  summer  the  fishing  was  excellent.  Even  now,  al 
though  summer  cottages  and  cheap  boarding  houses 
line  the  beach,  the  wild  game  tries  to  seek  its  old  haunts ; 
and  one  nleasant  day  that  I  spent  there  in  May,  1910, 
I  iheaiu.  the  plaintive  notes  of  the  plover  and  snipe 
in  the  marshes. 

There  was  also  deer  hunting,  and  Webster  occasion 
ally  indulged  in  it.  A  good  many  deer  were  to  be 
found  at  that  time  not  far  from  Marshfield  in  a  district 
nearly  twenty  miles  square,  called  the  Plymouth  Woods, 
rilled  with  a  great  number  of  ponds,  numbering,  it  is 
said,  nearly  two  hundred.  Loons  and  wood  ducks  fre 
quented  these  ponds  and  eagles  built  their  nests  in  the 
forest  trees.  Over  one  thousand  and  sixty  deer  were 
killed  there  in  1831.  It  was  the  sort  of  wild  life  which 
in  our  time  we  have  had  to  seek  in  the  Adirondacks  or 
northern  Maine. 

One  of  the  ponds  was  called  Billington  Sea  because 
Francis  Billington,  one  of  the  Pilgrims  of  the  May- 
flozver,  discovered  it  from  the  top  of  a  tree;  and  about 
the  same  time,  January,  1621,  two  other  trusty  Pilgrims, 
John  Goodman  and  Peter  Brown,  had  the  first  deer  hunt 

296 


MARSHFIELD 

of  which  we  have  any  account  in  this  country.  They 
found  one  of  the  lakes  and  from  the  borders  of  it  a  mas 
tiff  and  spaniel  they  had  with  them:  chased  a  deer  into 
the  forest.  They  followed,  armed  only  with  sickles, 
lost  their  way,  spent  the  night  in  a  snowstorm,  and  in 
their  veracious  narrative  declare  that  they  heard  two 
lions  roaring  very  near  them.  So  they  stood  by  a  tree 
all  night  ready  to  climb  up  when  the  lions  came.  "  But 
it  pleased  God,"  they  say,  "  so  to  dispose  that  the  beasts 
came  not."  2 

It  was  in  Webster's  time  a  sportsman's  paradise; 
ancT  although  the  land  was  sandy  and  not  supposed  to  be 
fertile  he  set  to  work  with  great  enthusiasm  to  study  its 
capabilities  and  improve  it.  He  had  apple  orchards,  rich 
pasturage,  fine  crops  of  turnips  and  carrots,  as  well  as 
corn,  wheat  and  garden  products.  He  was  the  first 
farmer  in  that  region  to  use  kelp,  or  sea  weed,  hauled 
from  the  beach  as  a  fertilizer.  He  also  used  as  fer 
tilizer  the  small  fish  called  menhaden  or  moss  bunkers, 
a  species  of  herring  found  in  summer  ^'me  P  t;ttle  way 
off  shore  in  enormous  numbers.  The  ,  ^ij.'iJ 

nets  and  spread  over  his  land.  In  our  uu  ^  ^  ^re 
taken  to  be  manufactured  into  oil  and  the  refuse  into 
fertilizer.  He  is  said  to  have  enormously  increased 
the  productiveness  of  his  land,  as  well  as  the  land  of  his 
neighbors,  who  profited  by  his  example  and  also  by  his 
fine  breeds  of  cattle  and  sheep.  There  is  not  much  now 
to  be  seen  upon  the  place ;  but  in  his  day  the  buildings, 
according  to  his  private  secretary,  numbered  two  or 
three  dozen,  outhouses,  tenant  houses,  dairyman's  cot 
tage,  fisherman's  house,  gardener's  house,  agricultural 
office  and  several  large  barns.  Poultry,  guinea  hens, 
peacocks,  ducks,  a  flock  of  tame  wild  geese  on  a  little 
lake,  with  the  Devon  oxen,  Alderneys,  Herfordshires, 
Ayrshires,  and  horses  made  Marshfield  almost  a  per 
manent  cattle  show.  Then  there  were  innumerable  fruit 


2  Lyman,  Memorials  of  Webster,  vol.  ii,  pp.  73,  74. 
297 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

trees  and  forest  trees,  most  of  them  planted  by  his  own 
hands.  He  delighted  in  tree  planting";  was  very  indig 
nant  with  people  who  would  not  plant  a  tree  because 
they  might  not  live  to  enjoy  its  full  shade,  and  was 
fond  of  quoting  against  them  Stephen  Girard,  who  said 
that  he  would  plant  a  tree  if  he  knew  he  were  to  die 
to-morrow. 

It  was  no  wonder  that  he  was  not  only  satisfied 
but  absorbed  and  delighted.  On  his  arrival  he  was  so 
eager  that  he  would  often  throw  his  travelling  bag  into 
the  hall,  and,  without  going  into  the  house,  hasten  to 
the  barn  to  see  his  favorite  oxen.3  He  loved  broad 
expanses,  a  wide  horizon.  He  never  could  have  satis 
fied  himself  with  a  villa,  or  an  ordinary  country  place 
with  its  trim  walks,  artificial  pond,  and  solemn  drives 
with  a  coachman.  Mere  "  martin  boxes,"  he  called 
such  places.  He  had  no  taste  or  fondness  for  indoor 
amusements.  "  He  never  played  a  game  of  chess  or 
checkers,  or  billiards,  or  ten-pins  in  his  life  " ;  and  it  is 
said  that  he  was  equally  ignorant  of  cards,  unless  it  was 
whist,  a  game  which  he  would  play  with  ladies.  Noth 
ing  short  of  a  large  farm  was  enough,  and  it  required 
two  or  three  to  satisfy  him ;  and  there  must  be  farmers 
for  miles  round  him,  so  that  he  could  go  on  long  explor 
ing  expeditions  among  them.  "  He  liked  large  things," 
jsays  Parton,  "  the  mountains,  elms,  great  oaks,  mighty 
bulls  and  oxen,  wide  fields,  the  ocean,  the  Union,  and  all 
things  of  magnitude.  He  liked  great  Rome  far  better 
than  refined  Greece,  and  revelled  in  the  immense  things 
of  literature,  such  as  '  Paradise  Lost/  the  '  Book  of 
Job,'  '  Burke,'  '  Dr.  Johnson,'  and  the  '  Sixth  Book 
of  the  yEneid.'  " 

He  had  a  lust  for  the  free  movement  and  power  of 
nature  and  animal  life.  In  his  last  illness  he  asked  to 
have  his  great  oxen  led  round  near  the  window,  where 

'This  characteristic  was  communicated  to  me  by  Judge 
Edgar  Aldrich  of  New  Hampshire,  who  learned  it  in  a  con 
versation  with  Porter  Wright,  Webster's  farm  superintendent. 

298 


MARSHFIELD 

he  could  see  them.  He  loved  the  fascinating  flight  of 
game,  the  changes  in  nature,  the  growth  and  decay; 
every  leaf  and  branch  was  dear  to  him ;  he  planted  trees 
to  mark  events ;  even  the  fish  in  the  water  charmed  him 
and  roused  his  imagination  and  eloquence.* 

His  hunger  and  passion  for  all  these  manifestations 
of  power  were  insatiable.  His  delight  in  the  early 
morning ;  in  fact,  his  worship  of  it ;  and  the  beautiful 
things  he  has  said  of  it  are  among  the  most  touching 
scenes  of  his  life.  He  loved  the  plunge  of  a  boat  in  the 
seas,  and  a  gun  that  shot  strong  and  true.  He  was 
never  ashamed  of  delight  in  simple  pleasures.  He  was 
like  the  old  fellow  who  would  not  give  up  the  hammer 
gun  because  he  loved  to  see  the  hammers  work  and 
would  not  give  up  black  powder  because  he  loved  to 
see  the  smoke. 

Contrary  to  what  has  been  sometimes  said,  he  was 
fond  of  horses,  though  not  as  devoted  to  them  as  he 
was  to  the  slow,  solemn  oxen.  Over  the  grave  of  one 
of  his  best  roadsters  he  placed  a  Latin  inscription, 
"  Siste  Viator!  Viator  te  major  hie  sistit."  (Stop 
traveller;  a  greater  traveller  than  you  stops  here.) 

So  fond  was  Webster  of  natural  history,  that  he  is 
said  to  have  intended  writing  a  book  to  be  called  the 
"  Natural  History  of  Marshfield,"  "  from  the  mouth  in 
part,"  he  said,  "  of  Seth  Peterson  and  edited  by  Daniel 
Webster/' and  he  had  collected  many  notes  for  this  work. 
It  was  suggested,  no  doubt,  by  that  delightful  book 
White's  "  Natural  History  of  Selborne."  He  was  a 
great  friend  of  the  naturalist  Audubon ;  often  had  him 
out  at  Marshfield ;  obtained  numerous  birds  for  him,  and 
among  others,  the  Canada  goose,  from  which  Audubon 
drew  the  fine  picture  .in  his  "  Birds  of  North  America."  5 

Few  men  have  shown  these  tastes  and  qualities  so 

4  Full  descriptions  of  Marshfield  will  be  found  in  Harvey's 
Reminiscences  of  Webster,  in  Lanman's  Private  Life  of  him, 
and  Lyman's  Memorials. 

6  Lanman,  Private  Life,  p.  93. 
299 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

intensely,  and  fewer  still  have  combined  them  with  such 
ascendency  in  oratory,  law  and  statesmanship.  Mac- 
aulay,  Burke  and  Chatham  were  wonderful  parliamen 
tary  orators ;  but  Macaulay  was  a  mere  city  man ;  and 
Chatham  and  Burke,  after  their  parliamentary  labors, 
had  no  strength  left  for  Webster's  pleasures.  The 
vital  force  in  Webster  must  have  been  extraordinary. 
It  impressed  every  one;  and  Carlyle,  after  seeing  him 
in  London,  is  reported  to  have  said  that  he  had  often 
heard  of  American  physical  degeneracy,  but  had  never 
seen  such  a  magnificent  specimen  of  it. 

The  family  farm,  The  Elms,  or,  more  correctly,  the 
Elms  Farm,  at  Franklin,  New  Hampshire,  he  had  se 
cured  for  himself  as  a  sentiment.  He  bought  more 
land  for  it,  and  went  there  occasionally,  often  spending 
weeks.  But  it  never  could  take  the  place  of  Marshfield. 
There  was  not  enough  to  do,  and  above  all,  he  could  not 
be  with  the  ocean.  "  At  Franklin/'  he  used  to  say,  "  I 
can  see  all  in  two  days,  but  at  Marshfield  I  can  go  out 
every  day  in  the  year  and  see  something  new."  At 
the  same  time  he  seems  to  have  had  much  enjoyment  at 
The  Elms.  He  writes  from  there  of  "  traversing  the 
mountains  and  valleys  and  enjoying  the  glorious  October 
weather,"  and  what  is  more  beautiful  and  invigorating 
than  a  New  Hampshire  October?  The  whole  scene 
and  all  its  associations,  he  writes,  "  are  interesting  to 
me.  I  like  much  to  be  here,  and  sometimes  I  think  it 
may  happen  that  I  shall  end  my  days  in  the  spot  of  my 
first  remembrances  and  consciousness."  He  kept  a 
boat  on  one  of  the  neighboring  lakes.  He  was  never 
happy  unless  he  had  boats ;  and  it  is  curious  to  see  the 
detailed  care  with  which  the  great  statesman  wrote 
directions  for  the  repairs  of  his  boat  and  for  keeping 
up  his  mother's  flower  garden.  For  many  years,  to 
wards  the  close  of  his  life,  on  his  annual  visit  to  The 
Elms,  crowds  of  people  would  assemble  at  the  stations 
along  the  railroad  to  welcome  him  to  his  native  State.6 

'Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xxi,  pp.  246,  249,  384,  385: 
Lanman,  Private  Life  of  Webster,  p.  60. 

300 


MARSHFIELD 

The  farming  at  the  New  Hampshire  place  was  car 
ried  on  by  him  with  the  same  interest  and  pleasure  as 
at  Marshfield.  His  man  in  charge  of  The  Elms  was 
John  Taylor,  whom  he  always  spoke  of  and  addressed  by 
his  full  name.  He  was  a  big,  powerful  farmer,  with 
plenty  of  shrewd  wit  and  sense,  and  clever  remarks  on 
political  affairs;  the  sort  of  man  that  always  seems  to 
have  given  Webster  as  much  satisfaction  as  the  farm 
itself.  Fine  cattle  were  bred  at  The  Elms ;  there  were 
sometimes  nearly  a  hundred  head  there;  and  the  farm 
became  nine  hundred  acres  in  size.7  Cattle  were  fre 
quently  sent  to  and  fro  between  The  Elms  and  Marsh- 
field.  Other  statesmen  of  that  age  were  remarkable 
for  their  farms,  but  none  of  them,  except  Webster, 
undertook  to  keep  two  expensive  places  going.  He 
afterwards  bought  a  third  large  farm,  near  La  Salle, 
Illinois  ;  and  we  can  understand  why  he  died  poor.  The 
amount  of  attention  he  gave  to  Marshfield  and  The  Elms 
is  astonishing.  He  was  continually  writing  letters  to 
the  people  in  charge  of  them.  He  says  in  one  letter 
that  he  thinks  a  great  deal  every  day  about  The  Elms. 
He  probably  thought  still  more  about  Marshfield ;  and 
<ohe  wonders  where  he  got  the  time  for  those  heavy 
litigations,  the  constitutional  arguments,  politics,  his 
tory  and  literature.  But  the  man's  nature  and  capacity 
were  vast ;  and,  as  already  once  said,  it  is  probable  that 
these  pleasures  of  farming,  sport  and  literature,  which 
seemed  to  absorb  three-fourths  of  his  time,  were  his 
real  life  and  health,  which  made  the  more  conspicuous 
and  famous  part  of  him  possible.8  ,\ 

Mr.  Lunt  has  left  in  manuscript,  in  the  Boston 
Athenaeum,  a  description  of  a  visit  to  Marshfield  to 
wards  the  close  of  Webster's  life.  Other  visitors, 
whether  they  came  for  admiration,  curiosity  or  business, 
were,  no  doubt,  received  in  the  same  way;  asked  to 
stay  all  day  or  several  days ;  given  a  saddle  horse  to 

7  Lyman  Memorials,  vol.  i,  p.  149. 

8  Harvey,  Reminiscences  of  Webster,  pp.  295,  298,  301,  305, 
3io,  420. 

301 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

ride  about  the  domain  and  made  a  member  of  the  house 
hold.  Webster  would  talk  with  them,  show  the  curiosi 
ties,  pictures  and  books  in  his  library,  dilate  with  frank 
admiration  on  the  things  he  loved  or  valued,  and  then 
leave  his  guests  to  themselves,  while  he  wandered  out 
to  some  pleasure  or  interest  on  the  farm,  returning  soon 
with  more  suggestions  of  amusement  for  his  visitors. 
In  this  easy  way  he  kept  everything  going,  evidently 
taking  the  keenest  delight  in  every  detail  of  the  place, 
the  fence  making,  the  crops,  the  garden  and  the  animals. 

There  was,  indeed,  about  the  life,  a  touch  of  the 
southern  plantation  and  its  hospitality  which  it  is  quite 
surprising  to  find  on  the  stern  coast  of  New  England. 
Webster,  no  doubt,  had  acquired  ideals  from  the  south 
ern  Senators  in  Washington  and  it  was^aie-of.. the.  pas 
sions  of  his  life  to  live  his  ideals.  Some  yards  away 
from  the  house  he  had  a  small  building  which  he  used 
as  a  law  office.  It  separated  his  professional  and  heavy 
work  from  the  more  literary  pleasures  of  the  library. 
Law  offices  of  this  kind  I  have  seen  on  some  of  the  old 
southern  plantations.  In  one  notable  instance  I  saw 
two  such  little  buildings  on  the  same  place ;  one  used 
by  the  father  and  the  other  by  the  son,  who  were  both 
in  large  practice. 

Besides  Seth  Peterson,  the  boatman,  there  was  Por 
ter  Wright,  a  sturdy  farmer  in  charge  of  the  place  as 
John  Taylor  was  at  The  Elms ;  and  both  men  were 
always  addressed  and  spoken  of  by  their  full  names. 
Seth  Weston  seems  to  have  been  second  to  Wright 
and  was  also  a  favorite.  To  see  these  men  about  and 
watch  their  labors  seems  to  have  been  an  endless  pleas 
ure  to  Webster.  He  was  constantly  talking  about  them 
to  his  friends  and  they  appear  frequently  in  his  letters. 
When  doubtful  in  1849  of  tne  advantage  of  again  be 
coming  Secretary  of  State,  he  writes  to  Mr.  Blatchford, 
"  Let  me  be  left  out  of  all  cabinets  but  that  of  Porter 
Wright,  Seth  Weston  and  Seth  Peterson."  9  None  of 

8  Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xvi,  p.  304. 
302 


MARSHFIELD 

them,  however,  had  quite  as  high  a  place  in  his  affec 
tions  as  Seth  Peterson.  To  merely  see  Peterson  and 
his  red  shirt  in  the  distance  was  a  pleasure  to  him. 

Another  interesting-  character  at  Marshfield,  per 
haps  the  most  valuable  one,  was  Monica,  one  of  those 
southern  cooks  who  cook  by  a  genius  and  inspiration 
no  French  chef  can  ever  hope  to  imitate.  She  had 
come  to  the  Websters  in  Washington  as  the  result  of  an 
application  for  servants  to  that  curiously  named  insti 
tution,  an  intelligence  office.  She  was  a  slave  of  one 
of  the  judges  of  the  Circuit  Court,  and  it  was  usual 
for  the  owners  of  slaves  to  hire  them  out  precisely  as 
they  would  their  oxen  and  horses.  The  Websters  were 
so  pleased  with  Monica  that  the  judge  proposed  to  sell 
her  to  them ;  but  Webster  declined  to  be  the  owner  of  a 
human  being.  He,  however,  bought  Monica's  freedom 
for  $600  and  employed  her  as  a  servant  on  wages,  she 
agreeing  to  work  only  for  her  bare  support  until  she 
had  paid  off  the  freedom  money.  She,  however,  re 
mained  Webster's  cook  all  the  rest  of  his  life  and  he 
paid  her  wages  without  any  reference  to  the  money 
he  had  paid  for  her  freedom.  At  his  death  she  had 
about  $2000  in  the  savings  bank.  She  was  devoted  to 
the  family  and  full  of  character,  efficiency  and  rich 
African  humor.  Webster  also  purchased  the  freedom 
of  a  slave  named  William  A.  Johnson  and  assisted  to 
purchase  the  freedom  of  another.10 

Webster's  library  filled  the  whole  wing  which,  as 
can  be  seen  in  the  illustration,  he  added  to  the  original 
Thomas  house.  The  interior  was  quite  effective  in 
appearance;  and  he  was  fond  of  telling  visitors  that  it 
had  been  designed  by  his  daughter  Julia.  The  whole 
house  was  burned  in  1879  together  with  many  interest 
ing  curios  and  relics  which  it  contained.  A  modern 
house  was  built  in  its  place,  and  a  few  years  after  the 
fire  the  property  was  sold  out  of  the  Webster  family  to 

"Harvey,  Reminiscences,  pp.  311,  313;  Works,  National 
Edition,  vol.  xvi,  p.  582. 

303 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

Mr.  Walton  Hall.  A  few  relics,  Webster's  arm  chair 
and  one  or  two  other  things,  are  in  this  new  house. 

Of  the  numerous  buildings  of  Webster's  time  scarce 
any  remain  except  his  little  law  office,  which  was  a  few 
yards  from  the  house.  The  old  colonial  house  of  the 
famous  Winslow  family,  which  once  stood  on  the  prop 
erty,  the  oldest  house,  as  was  supposed,  in  New  England, 
is  gone;  the  game  is  largely  gone;  all  the  activities 
and  life  he  created  are  gone;  summer  boarders  and 
their  shanty  towns  throng  the  sea  beach.  It  is  enough 
to  disquiet  him  in  his  grave.  Only  the  ocean  still  booms 
and  roars  on  the  beach  as  of  old,  biding  the  next  geologic 
age,  when  it  shall  engulf  all  and  recreate  it  nearer  to  the 
nature  Webster  loved. 

On  Green  Harbor  River,  near  its  mouth,  I  was 
shown  an  old  two-story  boat-house  where  Webster  kept 
the  craft  he  used  for  himself  and  his  guests  in  sea 
fishing;  and  in  the  upper  story,  they  said,  there  used 
to  be  beds  which  his  friends  used  when  they  came  in  too 
late  to  go  up  the  river  to  the  house.  Here  is  one  of 
his  letters  of  October,  1838,  about  the  fishing: 

"  There  is  nothing  in  this  world,  or  at  least  for  me,  like 
the  air  of  the  sea,  united  to  a  kind  of  lazy  exercise,  and  an 
absolute  forgetfulness  of  business  and  cares.  The  mackerel 
fishing  has  been  glorious.  I  have  had  some  success,  also,  in 
Tautog  way,  while  in  the  regular  line  of  cod,  haddock  and 
halibut,  business  has  been  steadily  cheerful.  Little  done  in 
duck  shooting,  but  I  understand  that  in  my  absence  last  week, 
a  shade  of  improvement  was  discernible  in  this  branch.  I 
cannot  go  extensively  into  it  this  year."  (Works,  National 
Edition,  vol.  xvi,  p.  304.) 

Like  all  lovers  of  nature  he,  no  doubt,  loved  the 
wailing  of  the  wind  in  the  trees  in  winter,  for  he  loved 
to  hear  that  moaning  or  peculiar  hollow  roar  which  the 
ocean  makes  after  a  storm.  He  had  learned  in  some 
way  that  the  old  name  for  this  was  the  rote  or  rut  of 
the  sea ;  and  Seth  Peterson's  name  for  it,  the  cry  of  the 
sea,  he  thought  very  expressive,  because  it  seemed  to 
describe  the  wailing  of  the  ocean  as  if  in  anger  under 

304 


I 


Courtesy  of  the  S.  S.  McClure  Company 

WEBSTER    TRAMPING    OVER    MARSHFIELD 


MARSHFIELD 

the  lashing  of  the  winds.     It  was  another  point  of  merit 
for  the  invaluable  Peterson. 

It  is  much  to  be  regretted  that  he  never  wrote  his 
book  on  natural  history;  for,  judging  from  scraps  of 
letters  on  this  subject,  it  would  have  been  delightful 
reading;  he  would  have  mixed  up  sport  with  it,  and, 
Izaak  Walton-like,  would  have  told  how  to  cook  differ 
ent  kinds  of  game. 

"These  are  black  fish  sometimes  called  Tautog.  Monica 
cooks  them  thus: — 

"Put  the  fish  into  a  pan  with  a  little  butter,  and  let  them 
fry  till  pretty  nearly  cooked,  then  put  in  a  little  wine  and 
pepper  and  salt,  and  let  them  stew.  She  uses  no  water.  A 
little  more  wine,  pepper  and  salt  to  make  a  good  gravy. 

"  So  says  Monica,  who  stands  at  my  elbow  at  half-past 
five  o'clock.  A  good  way  also  to  make  agreeable  table  com 
panions  of  these  fellows  is  to  barbecue  or  broil  them  without 
splitting." 

"My  dear  young  Friend,— I  propose  joining  you  this 
morning  to  pay  our  respects  to  the  Tautog,  but  fear  we  shall 
hardly  be  able  to  tempt  them  from  their  lurking  holes,  under 
this  bright  sun.  They  are  naturally  shy  of  light.  'Tautog' 
means  simply  the  black  fishes,  '  og '  being  a  common  termina 
tion  of  plural  nouns  in  the  language  of  our  Eastern  Indians. 
I  believe  the  fish  is  not  known  in  Europe.  Its  principal  habitat 
originally  seems  to  have  been  Long  Island  Sound,  Buzzard's 
Bay,  and  the  Elizabeth  Islands.  Seventy  years  ago  the  Honor 
able  Stephen  Gorham,  father  of  the  Honorable  Benjamin 
Gorham,  now  of  Boston,  brought  some  of  these  fish  alive  from 
New  Bedford  and  put  them  into  the  sea  at  Boston.  They  are 
now  found  as  far  east  as  the  mouth  of  the  Merrimac.  They 
abound,  as  you  know,  on  the  south  side  as  well  as  on  the  north 
side  of  our  Bay.  Indeed  it  is  thought  that  by  their  own 
progress  north  they  doubled  Cape  Cod,  not  long  after  Mr. 
Gorham's  deposit  at  Boston."  (Works,  National  Edition,  vol. 
xvi,  p.  660.) 

The  last  of  the  above  letters  was  written  July  23, v 
1852,  only  three  months  before  his  death.   <fle  of  ten  \ 
used  to  say  that  he  wanted  to  live  three  lives,  one  to  be  \ 
devoted  to  astronomy,  one  to  geology,  and  the  third  to  \ 
classical  literature,  and  he  might  have  added,  a  fourth    \ 
to  natural  history^ 

20  305 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

All  the  neighboring  region — Cohasset,  Chelsea 
Beach  and  Nantasket  Beach — were  explored  by  Webster 
in  his  sporting  excursions  for  wild  fowl.  Many  stories 
of  his  adventures  were,  of  course,  afloat  in  his  lifetime. 
It  was  the  day  of  flintlock  guns  and  black  powder,  and 
before  reloading  the  sportsman  often  applied  his  lips  to 
the  muzzle,  to  blow  the  smoke  from  the  barrel.  When 
Webster,  in  his  rough  clothes,  had  smutted  his  already 
dark,  swarthy  face  by  this  blowing  process,  he  looked 
like  a  very  piratical  and  terrible  personage. 

He  once  accidentally  sprinkled  a  stranger  with  shot, 
and  walked  towards  him,  saying: 

"  My  dear  sir,  I  am  very  sorry,  did  I  shoot  you?" 

"  Yes,"  said  the  man,  staring  into  the  grimy  face, 
"  and  judging  by  your  looks  you  have  done  that  sort  of 
thing  before." 

One  day  a  farmer  met  him  roaming  the  marshes. 

"  This  is  Daniel  Webster,  I  believe." 

"  That  is  my  name." 

"  Well  now,"  said  the  farmer,  "  I  am  told  that  you 
can  make  from  three  to  five  dollars  a  day  pleadin'  cases 
up  in  Boston." 

Mr.  Webster  replied  that  he  was  sometimes  so  for 
tunate  as  to  receive  that  amount  for  his  services. 

"  Well  now,"  returned  the  rustic,  "  it  seems  to  me,  I 
declare,  if  I  could  get  as  much  as  that  in  the  city  pleadin' 
law  cases,  I  would  not  be  a  wadin'  over  these  marshes 
this  hot  weather,  shooting  little  birds."  n 

Marshfield  is  only  some  ten  miles  north  of  Plymouth 
and  is  the  region  into  which  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  who 
came  over  in  the  MayAower  spread  themselves.  Every 
where  their  descendants,  their  graves,  their  thrifty,  in 
telligent  views  of  life,  and  their  unadorned  and  strong- 
minded  forms  of  religion  were  to  be  found.  Webster 
loved  all  this.  As  a  student  of  history  it  was  a  very 
congenial  atmosphere  for  him;  and  the  old-fashioned 

"Harvey,  Reminiscences  of  Webster,  p.  293. 
306 


MARSHFIELD 

ways  of  the  people  delighted  him.  He  wandered  over 
the  whole  region,  making  the  acquaintance  of  every 
body.  On  his  place,  about  half  a  mile  from  the  house  is 
an  old  graveyard  where  rest  not  a  few  of  the  old  colo 
nists,  captains,  farmers,  and  ministers  of  the  Gospel 
The  head-  and  foot-stones  made  of  the  native  dark  slate- 
colored  stone,  with  old-fashioned,  neat  engraving  round 
the  borders,  are  pleasantly  impressive,  and  in  better 
taste  than  some  modern  glaring  white  marble  monu 
ments  beside  them. 

From   one   headstone   I   learned  that  "Here   lyeth 
ye  ashes  of  ye  Reverened  learned  and  pious  Mr.  Ed 
ward  Thompson,  Pastor  of  the  church  of  Marshfield 
who  suddenly  departed  this  life  March  y.   16    1705  " 
And  the  footstone  tells  us  that 

"  Here  in  a  tyrant's  hand  doth  captive  lye, 
A  rare  synopsis  of  Divinity. 
Old  patriarchs,  prophets,  Gospel  Bishops  meet, 
Jnder  deep  silence  in  this  winding  sheet. 
All  rest  awhile,  in  hopes  and  full  intent, 
When  their  King  calls  to  sit  in  Parliament." 

Webster  himself  rests  here  in  this  graveyard  among 
the  old  pilgrims. 


307 


XII 

NULLIFICATION  AND  COMPROMISE 

THE  greatest  admirers  of  Webster's  reply  to  Hayne, 
while  they  were  sure  that  he  had  raised  the  Union  cause 
to  a  higher  plane  of  popularity,  were  far  from  suppos 
ing  that  he  had  settled  the  controversy.  The  general 
opinion  of  the  majority  of  the  people  throughout  the 
country  was  admittedly  against  the  right  of  a  State  to 
secede  from  the  Union  or  nullify  Acts  of  Congress. 
But  the  minority  were  by  no  means  silenced.  They 
were  generally  believed  to  be  powerful  enough  to  seize 
some  favorable  opportunity  to  break  up  the  Union ;  to 
take  one  or  two  States  out  of  it ;  and  it  was  feared  that 
the  rest  of  the  country,  though  disapproving,  would 
look  on  passively  and  allow  it  to  be  done.  Some  act  of 
secession  might  be  made  a  precedent  at  a  time  when 
the  majority  could  not  be  aroused  to  the  point  of  resist 
ing  it  by  force.  That  irresponsible  and  trouble-saving 
phrase,  much  used  in  later  years,  "  erring  sisters  go  in 
peace,"  might  become  a  popular  doctrine,  or  so  far 
popular  that  it  would  cripple  all  effective  action  among 
the  lovers  of  union. 

4V  Speculations  as  to  how  long  the  Union  will  endure 
have  been  seldom  or  never  heard  in  our  time  of  the  last 
forty  years.  But  during  the  fifty  years  before  the  Civil 
War  they  were  the  common  topics  of  conversation. 
Whether  to  allow  the  controversy  to  slumber;  or  to 
arouse  it  and  fight  it  out;  and  when  aroused,  whether 
it  would  not  be  better  to  compromise  with  it,  were  the 
great  questions. 

The  fundamental  cause  of  nullification  in  *ut  pfrig^ 
slavery.     Altnoii'gn  the  trade  and  geo 
graphical  conditions ^oT^the  country  were  sectional,  al 
though  Benton  assumed  to  say  for  the  West  that  it 

308 


NULLIFICATION  AND  COMPROMISE 

wanted  no  transportation  facilities  across  the  Alle- 
ghanies,  no  railroads  or  canals  to  connect  it  with  the 
East,  that  it  preferred  to  live  by  itself  and  carry  on 
all  its  trade  at  New  Orleans,  yet  the  West  had  no  real 
inclination  for  either  nullification  or  secession.  The 
only  place  where  nullification  and  secession  were  strong 
was  in  the  South,  the  land  of  slavery. 

Not  that  the  South  gave  this  out  as  the  cause  of  her 
nullification  theories;  far  from  it.  The  usual  reticence 
and  precaution  on  that  question  were  carefully  pre 
served.  It  was  the  protective  tariff  that  was  put  for 
ward  as  the  cause,  the  protective  system  for  which  the 
South  Carolina  leaders,  especially  Calhoun,  had  voted 
and  argued  in  1816,  as  a  benefit  to  the  country;  and 
now  since  1828  were  announcing  as  a  sufficient 
cause  for  breaking  up  the  Union.  Calhoun  went  into 
long  explanations  to  show  that  he  had  not  changed  either 
his  mind  or  his  ground  in  regard  to  the  principle  of 
protection,  that  his  speeches  in  1816  were  hastily  deliv 
ered,  that  the  tariff  of  1816  was  not  really  protective 
and  so  on.  But  there  were  his  speeches  in  print  as  de 
liberate  and  careful  as  any  of  his  others,  and  there  were 
his  words  calling  it  a  protective  tariff  and  recommending 
it  as  such.  To  convict  him  of  the  change  Webster 
merely  reprinted  those  speeches. 

Calhoun  had  to  change  his  ground  also  as  to  the 
constitutional  power  of  Congress  over  slavery  in  the 
territories.  But  no  matter  about  these  inconsistencies. 
A  statesman  should  have  the  same  right  as  an  ordinary 
sensible  citizen,  to  change  his  mind,  although  in  public 
he  must  sometimes  go  through  the  farce  of  pretending 
that  he  never  changes. 

Calhoun  had,  however,  from  his  own  point  of  view, 
good  reasons  for  his  change.  He  must  change  or  go 
out  of  politics.  He  was  a  southerner;  he  must  stand 
by  his  own  people ;  and  they  had  changed.  Soon  after 
1825  they  saw  that  the  foundations  o|  their  wealth, 
and  their  social  and  political  system  were  threatened! 
In  fact,  they  began  to  be  conscious  of  danger  to  slavery 

300 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

soon  after  1820.  They  saw  that  the  majority  of  the 
country,  the  North  and  the  Northwest,  were  not  content 
with  having  abolished  slavery  in  their  own  communities 
or  with  never  having  had  it  there,  and  were  becoming 
more  and  more  intolerant  of  it  in  the  South.1 

There  were  not  a  few  bright  minds  in  South  Carolina 
and  some  of  them  by  serial  articles  in  the  newspapers 
had  been  extraordinarily  successful  in  working  up  the 
high-strung  popular  feeling  of  the  State,  exaggerating 
it,  exasperating  it  against  the  tariff  and  inflaming  the 
people  into  believing  it  was  monstrous  wicked  that  the 
majority  should  rule,  that  three-fourths  should  tax  a 
quarter,  that  a  majority  in  the  Union  should  tax  a 
minority  in  Carolina.  This  method  carried  the  State, 
and  Hayne  and  Calhoun  had  to  yield  to  it.  It  forced 
Calhoun  against  his  will  to  change  his  opinions  ;  and 
in  these  newspaper  articles  are  to  be  found  arguments 
afterwards  used  by  Calhoun  and  commonly  supposed 
to  have  originated  with  him. 

There  had  been  no  public  act,  no  avowed  or  official 
attempt  to  interfere  with  slavery  ;  no  move  in  that  direc 
tion  had  been  made  in  Congress  or  in  any  department  of 
the  government,  Qfl  the  rnntrary,  nrftTjT  t!2^^"rn 

,  like  Webster,  announced  in  tne^most 

jjrit    "Tr"""   *1  I  I      1  i     t»    <t  Q    South 


was  protected  and  guaranteed  by  the  Constitution.  This 
had  been  well  enough  in  the  early  part  of  the  century  ; 
and  in  those  days  the  South  had  never  had  any  objection 
to  academic  discourses  on  the  moral  wrong  and  the  prac 
tical  evils  of  slavery.  In  fact,  they  had  delivered  such 
discourses  themselves.  Jefferson  and  other  prominent 
southerners  openly  described  slavery  as  an  evil.  Jeffer 
son  was  supposed  to  have  been  the  author  of  the  clause 
prohibiting  slavery  in  the  ordinance  for  the  govern 
ment  of  the  northwest  territory  ;  and  in  those  days  there 

1  Houston,  Nullification  in  South  Carolina,  pp.  49,  51,  53, 
59,  61,  62,  63,  72,  75. 

310 


NULLIFICATION  AND  COMPROMISE 

were  far  more  emancipation  societies  in  the  South  than 
there  were  in  the  North. 

But  in  the  last  few  years  northern  sentiment  had 
become  strangely  aggressive.  There  was  a  note  in  it 
that  had  never  been  observed  before.  The  guarantees 
of  the  Constitution  were  repeated  in  the  same  language ; 
not  the  slightest  move  against  slavery  was  made  ii 
Congress ;  but  the  southerners  began  to  realize  that 
people  in  the  North  were  beginning  to  organize  a  cru 
sade  against  slavery  without  any  regard  to  either  Con 
gress  or  the  Constitution.  Hayne  had  referred  to  this 
movement  in  one  of  his  speeches  in  the  Great  Debate  in 
1830;  and  since  then  the  movement  had  spread  and 
grown  stronger. 

The  southern  leaders  in  South  Carolina  saw  that 
this  movement  must  be  met.  Their  constituents  were 
forcing  them  to  meet  it.  Their  constituents  believed 
that  the  abolition  movement  in  the  North  meant  ruin 
to  the  South.  Slavery  was  everything  to  the  South; 
or,  at  least,  it  seemed  to  be  so.  It  was  the  source  of 
their  wealth,  their  social  system,  everything,  as  it 
seemed,  that  made  life  worth  living.  It  seemed  more 
important  to  them  than  the  Union.  To  save  it,  save 
their  property,  their  customs  and  their  old  way  of  life, 
they  must  be  able  to  live  more  or  less  independently  of 
the  rest  of  the  country.  They  must  be  able  to  annul 
laws  of  Congress  that  did  not  suit  their  social,  political 
or  business  systems.  They  must  draw  the  line  of  self- 
protection  round  themselves.  If  necessary,  they  must 
leave  the  Union  and  form  an  independent  confederacy 
with  slavery  as  its  cornerstone. 

But  they  did  not  want  to  leave  the  Union.  The 
Union  had  always  had  obvious  advantages.  They  did 
not  want  secession  if  it  could  be  avoided.  They  pre 
ferred  nullification,  by  which  they  thought  they  could 
remain  in  the  Union  and  nullify  any  of  its  acts  that  were 
objectionable  so  far  as  those  acts  applied  to  themselves. 

Not   being   able   to   state   the   real   cause   of   their 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

trouble  (for  neither  Congress  nor  any  department  of  the 
national  government  had  made  the  slightest  move 
against  slavery),  they  had  seized  upon  the  protective 
tariff  acts  of  Congress  of  1828  and  of  1832,  which  had 
become  objectionable  to  their  people,  and  which,  if 
nullified,  would  become  an  excellent  precedent  and 
,build  round  them  their  first  line  of  defence.  They  had 
worked  themselves  up  into  a  most  violent  feeling  against 
the  tariff,  a  most  exaggerated  fear  of  its  evils.  Through 
public  meetings,  the  protest  of  their  Legislature,  and 
the  speeches  of  Hayne  in  1830,  they  had  formally  set 
forth  their  theory  of  nullification ;  but  they  had  taken 
no  practical  steps  to  nullify  the  tariff  acts  of  Congress. 
Now,  however,  under  the  leadership  of  Calhoun,  they 
were  prepared  to  go  much  farther. 

Their  arguments  described  the  South  as  in  a  deplor 
able  state  of  poverty  and  destitution  as  a  result  of  the 
protective  tariff.  "  Ruin  and  decay,"  says  the  report 
of  the  committee  of  the  South  Carolina  convention  of 
1832,  "  are  everywhere  visible  round  us ;  memorials 
proclaiming  the  fatal  character  of  that  system  which 
has  brought  upon  one  of  the  finest  portions  of  the  globe, 
in  the  full  vigor  of  its  early  manhood,  the  poverty  and 
desolation  which  belong  only  to  the  most  sterile  regions, 
or  to  the  old  age  and  decrepitude  of  nations."  Similar 
statements  are  in  the  speeches  of  Calhoun  and  Hayne. 
The  plantation  States  were  being  reduced  to  "  poverty 
and  utter  desolation  " ;  and,  according  to  these  state 
ments,  the  ruin  and  poverty  were  to  be  seen  everywhere 
by  anyone  travelling  through  the  South,  which,  being 
a  purely  agricultural  region,  exporting  cotton,  rice,  in 
digo,  and  tobacco,  was  compelled  by  the  tariff  to  pay 
a  high  tribute  for  all  its  imported  articles,  manu 
factured  woollens,  cottons,  iron,  sugar,  and  salt.  This 
difference  between  the  price  of  the  imported  articles 
under  the  tariff  and  the  price  that  would  be  paid  for 
them  if  there  were  no  protective  tariff,  was  the  supposed 
cause  of  the  financial  ruin  of  the  planters. 

312 


NULLIFICATION  AND  COMPROMISE 

In  considering  this  statement  we  must  remember  that 
it  was  put  forth  by  the  majority  party  in  South  Carolina 
who  were  in  favor  of  nullification.  It  was  flatly  denied 
by  the  minority  party.  The  minority,  composed  of  some 
of  the  most  prominent  and  able  men  of  the  State,  had 
denied,  as  Webster  pointed  out,  that  there  was  any 
ruin  or  decay  in  their  commonwealth.  The  so-called 
ruin  and  decay  was,  as  Petigru,  one  of  the  minority 
leaders,  said,  a  "  mere  rhetorical  flourish."  2  The  State 
was  as  prosperous,  they  said,  as  ever;  and,  indeed,  this 
has  been  generally  supposed  to  have  been  the  period 
when  the  whole  plantation  aristocracy  of  the  Carolinas 
and  Georgia  was  at  the  height  of  its  wealth,  power 
and  prestige.  The  old  Virginia  tobacco  aristocracy  was 
passing  away,  because  of  changed  trade  conditions  of 
tobacco.  But  farther  south  cotton  and  rice  were  still 
made  profitable  by  slavery. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  tariff  had  injured  the 
commercial  and  ship-owning  interest  in  South  Carolina 
as  it  had  injured  the  same  interest  in  New  England. 
It  is  also  probable  that  there  had  been  loss  in  the  Caro 
linas  and  old  seaboard  slave  States  because  new  cotton 
lands  were  being  rapidly  developed  in  the  recent  wilder 
ness  regions  of  Alabama,  Mississippi  and  Louisiana  and 
underselling  the  cotton  of  the  old  Atlantic  seaboard 
States.  All  this  was  loss;  the  sort  of  loss  that  fre 
quently  happens;  but  not  destitution  and  decay.  It 
would,  indeed,  be  very  extraordinary  if  the  mere  in 
creased  tax  caused  by  the  tariff  could  produce  the  pov 
erty  which  the  nullification  leaders  described.  There 
were  purely  agricultural  communities  in  the  North  and 
West  which  suffered  no  such  decay  from  the  tariff. 
There  are  such  communities  to-day.  They  may  object 
to  the  tax  the  tariff  inflicts  on  them ;  they  undoubtedly 
suffer  a  certain  loss  from  it ;  but  they  are  not  driven 
by  it  into  poverty  and  destitution ;  nor  do  they  threaten 

2  Webster's  Works,  vol.  iii,  p.  493;  Houston,  Nullification 
in  South  Carolina,  p.  no. 

313 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

to  break  up  the  Union  on  account  of  it  any  more  than 
the  people  who  send  their  children  to  private  schools 
threaten  to  rebel  because  they  have  to  pay  a  tax  to  sup 
port  public  schools  for  other  people's  children.  The 
South  itself  in  the  last  forty  years  has  steadily  increased 
in  wealth  and  prosperity  in  spite  of  the  protective  tariff. 
But  in  that  forty  years  there  has  been  no  slavery  in  the 
South. 

There  was  the  rub.  If  any  process  of  real  decay  had 
~  started  in  the  South  it  was  from  slavery.  The  opinion 
\was  often  expressed  at  the  time,  it  was  one  of  the  recog 
nized  principles  of  the  political  economy  of  the  day,  that 
slavery  was  profitable  only  in  new  or  half-wild  countries. 
As  a  country  developed,  slavery  became  less  and  less 
profitable  until  at  last  it  was  a  positive  loss;  and  then 
history  showed  that  it  was  usually  abolished,  as  it  had 
been  in  nearly  all  European  countries,  and  was  on  the 
eve  of  being  abolished  in  the  British  and  French  colonies 
and  Mexico.  Benton  was  fond  of  saying  that  slavery 
would  take  care  of  itself  in  America  and  be  abolished 
as  soon  as  it  became  decidedly  unprofitable.  Von  Hoist 
in  his  history  of  the  United  States  has  collected  a  con 
siderable  mass  of  evidence  to  show  that  slavery  was 
already  becoming  unprofitable,  and  that  between  this 
period  and  1860  values  of  all  property  in  the  South 
were  as  steadily  sinking  as  they  have  steadily  risen  since 
the  Civil  War. 

Calhoun  had  recently  written  a  pamphlet,  in  the  form 
of  a  letter  to  the  Governor  of  South  Carolina,  rearguing 
the  whole  nullification  question;  and  Webster  regarded 
this  pamphlet  as  of  such  dangerous  tendency  that  he 
was  preparing  to  reply  to  it  in  an  open  letter  to  Chan 
cellor  Kent,  of  New  York.  But  before  he  could  do  this 
the  South  Carolinians  took  such  a  serious  step  that 
the  question  came  up  in  the  Senate  in  the  form  best 
suited  to  Webster's  methods. 

The  Carolinians  had  hoped,  they  said,  that  the  tariff 
of  1828  would  be  changed  or  repealed;  but  no  change 
being  made  and  the  act  having  been  made,  if  anything, 

3i4 


NULLIFICATION  AND  COMPROMISE 

worse  by  the  new  act  of  July,  1832,  they  proceeded  in 
their  own  fashion  to  abolish  the  whole  tariff  legislation. 
In  November,  1832,  a  convention  of  delegates  represent 
ing  as  they  believed  the  full  sovereignty  of  the  State  of 
South  Carolina,  formally  declared  the  tariff  laws  of 
Congress  null  and  void  within  the  boundaries  of  the 
State  and  directed  the  Legislature  to  pass  such  laws 
as  should  be  necessary  to  carry  this  declaration  into 
effect  after  the  first  day  of  February,  1833.  The  Legis 
lature  met  a  few  days  afterwards  and  passed  laws  for 
the  replevin  of  any  imported  goods  that  might  be  seized 
for  duty  by  the  United  States  officials.  Heavy  penalties 
were  enacted  against  persons  who  should  undertake  to 
execute  the  tariff  laws ;  and  military  forces  were  directed 
to  be  raised  to  repel  any  efforts  of  the  Government  at 
Washington  to  coerce  the  State. 

In  a  couple  of  months,  therefore,  the  tariff  laws  of 
Congress  were  to  be  abolished  in  South  Carolina  and 
imported  goods  could  then,  apparently,  be  landed  in 
that  State  free  of  duty.  If  the  government  and  the 
rest  of  the  country  accepted  the  situation  a  precedent  of 
actual  nullification  would  be  created.  A  President  like 
Buchanan,  of  thirty  years  later,  might  possibly  have 
doubted  his  authority  to  coerce  a  State  and  presumably 
he  would  have  allowed  the  situation  to  drift.  President 
Jackson  might  have  taken  the  same  course.  He  had 
already  refused  to  enforce  a  decision  of  the  Supreme 
Court  in  Georgia ;  he  had  allowed  the  State  of  Georgia 
to  create  a  precedent  of  nullification ;  so  why  not  refuse 
to  enforce  a  law  against  which  the  southern  wing  of  his 
own  party  in  South  Carolina  were  rebelling?  But  for 
tunately  he  had  quarrelled  with  Calhoun  and  his  violence 
and  passions  were  all  enlisted  against  the  Carolinians. 
He  at  once  issued  a  proclamation  3  based  on  the  reason- 

8  Said  to  have  been  prepared  by  Edward  Livingston  of 
Louisiana,  Secretary  of  State ;  but  Webster  believed  it  to  have 
been  written  by  Mr.  Trist,  an  able  young  man  in  the  State 
Department.  (Webster,  Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xvi,  p. 
224.) 

315 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

ing  of  Webster's  reply  to  Hayne;  directed  the  revenue 
officers  to  enforce  the  laws  as  usual,  denounced  as 
treason  any  attempts  to  interfere  with  them,  and  sent 
a  naval  force  to  occupy  Charleston  harbor  and  enforce 
the  laws  of  Congress. 

This  was  in  December  when  Congress  was  beginning 
to  assemble  and  nothing  more  except  debate  would  hap 
pen  until  the  first  of  February,  the  time  fixed  by  South 
Carolina  for  the  beginning  of  actual  nullification.  In 
fact,  as  Webster  pointed  out,  nothing  would  happen 
after  the  first  of  February  unless  some  importer  in 
South  Carolina  refused  to  pay  duty  on  goods  and  the 
goods  were  seized.  If  the  importer  then  under  the  State 
nullification  laws  attempted  to  replevy  the  goods  the 
United  States  collector  would  refuse  to  give  up  the 
goods  and  it  would  be  a  trial  of  strength  between  collec 
tor  and  sheriff,  the  one  to  be  supported  by  the  army  of 
the  United  States  and  the  other  by  the  volunteer  militia 
of  South  Carolina. 

President  Jackson  sent  a  special  message  to  Congress 
describing  the  situation  and  asking  for  legislation  to 
aid  him  in  enforcing  the  laws.  A  bill  was  introduced 
authorizing  him,  when  the  collection  of  duties  was 
obstructed  in  any  port,  to  change  the  collection  district 
and  establish  the  custom  house  in  a  more  secure  place ; 
and  to  shield  customs  officials  from  suits  in  the  State 
courts,  cases  against  them  were  authorized  to  be  re 
moved  to  the  Federal  tribunals. 

This  was  the  Force  Bill,  as  it  was  afterwards  known 
in  history,  and  it  created  some  confusion  in  the  ranks  of 
the  President's  party.  Many  Democrats  assailed  it  as 
a  measure  of  tyranny,  compared  it  to  the  Boston  Port 
Bill  of  revolutionary  times,  and  declared  that  it  sacri 
ficed  everything  to  arbitrary  power.  The  South  Caro 
lina  Legislature  answered  the  President's  efforts  in  a 
series  of  resolutions,  denouncing  his  proclamation  and 
setting  him  at  defiance.  "  Old  Hickory's  "  blood  was  up ; 
he  had  been  using  very  violent  language  about  the 

316 


NULLIFICATION  AND  COMPROMISE 

Carolina  leaders ;  and  at  any  moment  he  might  take  the 
law  into  his  own  hands  in  Tennessee  style,  arrest  Cal- 
houn  and  the  rest  of  them,  and  perhaps  order  them  hung 
or  shot. 

In  this  predicament  the  President's  friends  sought 
the  aid  of  Webster  to  carry  the  Force  Bill  through 
Congress  and  protect  it  from  the  President's  own  party ; 
and  the  South  Carolinians  agreed  to  "  suspend  "  nullifi 
cation  until  the  adjournment  of  Congress.  Webster 
accepted  the  task.  He  soon  began  to  succeed  with  the 
Force  Bill,  and  by  ridiculing  the  Democrats  for  oppos 
ing  their  own  President's  measure,  he  was  bringing  the 
bill  into  a  good  position  to  be  finally  passed.  It  was  an 
odd  coalition,  the  conservative,  tactful  lawyer-orator  and 
the  radical  and  violent  old  military  chieftain.  But  the 
combination  was  a  powerful  one,  both  in  Congress  and 
before  the  public;  and  was  forcing  Calhoun  and  the 
nullificationists  to  the  wall. 

The  day  after  the  Force  Bill  was  introduced,  Cal 
houn,  who  was  again  a  Senator  from  South  Carolina, 
had  introduced  three  resolutions  setting  forth  the  prin 
ciples  of  nullification.  Hayne  was  no  longer  in  the 
Senate,  and  it  was  now  Calhoun's  turn  to  defend  the 
southern  doctrine. 

The  first  thing  to  be  observed  about  the  resolutions 
is,  that  they  abandon  Hayne's  idea,  that  the  States 
having 'become  parties  to  the  compact  called  the  Con 
stitution,  the  general  government  created  by  that  com 
pact  became  an  additional  sovereign  party  to  it.  Web 
ster  had  shown  this  to  be  such  an  absurd  method  of 
legal  reasoning  that  it  had  to  be  dropped,  and  since 
then  has  never  been  maintained  by  anyone.  So  Cal 
houn  fell  back  on  the  general  statement  of  the  old 
Virginia  and  Kentucky  resolutions,  that  the  people 
of  the  several  States  were  "  united  as  parties  to  the 
constitutional  compact,  to  which  the  people  of  each  State 
acceded  as  a  separate  and  sovereign  community,"  and 
"  as  in  all  other  cases  of  compact  among  sovereign  par- 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

ties,  without  any  common  judge,  each  has  an  equal  right 
to  judge  for  itself."  The  rest  of  the  resolutions  were 
taken  up  with  the  doctrine  that  it  was  the  States  as 
parties,  and  not  the  people  collectively,  that  had  made 
the  Constitution. 

Most  of  Calhoun's  speech  against  the  Force  Bill 
dealt  with  the  iniquity  of  the  tariff  and  explanations  of 
his  change  of  position.  But  it  was  beyond  the  utmost 
exertion  of  his  metaphysical  subtlety  to  show  that  his 
advocacy  of  protection  in  1816  was  the  same  as  his 
present  deadly  enmity  to  it.  What  he  said  in  support  of 
his  resolutions  on  the  constitutional  question  may  be 
immarized  in  five  statements : 

1.  He  could   not  in   the   nature   of  things   conceive   of   a 
division  of  power  without  an  equal  right  to  each  to  judge  of 
the  extent  of  the  power  allotted  to  each. 

2.  The  words  union,  federal,  united,  all  imply  a  combina 
tion  of  sovereignties,  not  an  association  of  individuals.     Who 
ever  heard  of  the  United  States  of  New  York,  Massachusetts 
or  of  Virginia? 

3.  Sovereignty  is  in  its  nature  indivisible.    It  is  the  supreme 
power  in  a  State ;  and  we  might  as  well  speak  of  half  a  square 
or  half  a   triangle,   as  of   half  a   sovereignty.     Therefore  the 
States  have  never  surrendered  their  sovereignty  to  the  general 
government. 

4.  The   whole   sovereignty  is   in   the   several    States,   while 
the    exercise    of    sovereign    power    is    divided,    a    part    being 
exercised  under  compact  through  the  general  government  and 
the  residue  through  the  separate  State  governments.    * 

5.  Each    State,   under   the   nullification    doctrine,    possesses 
within   itself  the   means   of   self-protection   by   nullifying  any 
dangerous  act  of  Congress.     This  prevents  the  tyranny  of  the 
majority    over    a    minority.      The    result    will    necessarily    be 
unanimity   in   council,   ardent   attachment  of   the  parts   to  the 
whole  and   a  perfect  union.     There  will  be  no   secession   or 
breaking  up  of  the  Union ;  that  will  occur  only  when  the  Gen 
eral  Government  becomes  consolidated  and  tyrannizes  over  a 
minority. 

His  theory,  it  is  easy  to  see,  is  the  same  as  Hayne's, 
except  that  it  does  not  make  the  general  government  a 

318 


NULLIFICATION  AND  COMPROMISE 

party  to  the  compact.     It  is  Hayne's  theory  supported 
by  metaphysical  reasoning,  the  old  metaphysics  of  the 
Scotch  school,  which  had  been  very  prevalent  in  Cal- 
houn's  youth  and  which  his  biographers  say  he  studied 
with  much  ardor.     He  had  studied  law,  but  he  had  had 
little  or  no  practice,  and  no  training  in  legal  and  con 
stitutional  reasoning.     His  method  is  the  direct  oppo 
site   of  the   legal   and   historical   method   of   Webster. 
Abandoning  the  precise  words  and  details  of  the  Con 
stitution,    Calhoun    tries    to    reason   out   what    in    the 
nature  of  things  such  a  government  must  or  should  be.  I 
Webster,   on    the   other   hand,    stays    within   the    four  f 
corners  of  the  document,  as  the  lawyers  say,  and  con-j 
fines  his  reasoning  to  the  actual  provisions  and  words  I 
of  the  instrument  and  the  history  of  its  adoption. 

Webster's  reply,  though  less  popular  than  the  reply 
to  Hayne,  is  in  some  respects  much  abler  as  a  legal 
and  constitutional  argument.  He  had  been  called  upon 
rather  suddenly  in  the  Hayne  debate.  But  now  he  was 
well  prepared  with  three  years  of  reflection  and  no  per 
sonal  explanations  about  the  Hartford  Convention  and 
inconsistencies  to  interfere  with  the  real  point  at  issue. 

He  plunged  at  once  into  the  full  tide  of  the  subject. 
He  showed  what,  with  more  prepara^n  and  less  inter 
ference  of  other  things,  he  might  have  shown  in  the 
reply  to  Hayne,  namely,  that  it  was  a  pure  assumption 
to  call  the  Constitution  a  compact.  The  word  compact 
means  a  treaty  or  league ;  but  the  Constitution  nowhere 
calls  itself  a  league,  a  treaty  or  a  compact.  It  calls  itself 
in  its  opening  paragraph  a  constitution,  a  word  which 
means  an  organic  or  fundamental  law  or  form  of  govern 
ment,  a  very  different  conception  from  that  of  a  treaty 
or  compact  between  sovereigns.  The  State  of  South 
Carolina  herself  in  accepting  the  Constitution  had  de 
clared  that  she  "  ratified  this  Constitution  or  form  of 
government."  All  the  States  in  their  formal  declara 
tion  accepting  the  Constitution  used  the  word  ratify, 


3i9 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

some  using  the  additional  words  ordain,  establish,  assent 
to,  adopt,  but  all  using  ratify.  The  Constitution  itself 
uses  ordain  and  establish.  It  uses  the  word  compact 
only  once,  and  that  is  when  it  declares  that  the  States 
shall  enter  into  no  compact.  It  distinguishes  "itself 
from  a  league  or  confederacy ;  for  it  says  that  all  debts 
contracted  shall  be  as  valid  under  this  Constitution  as 
under  the  confederation.  It  does  not  say  as  valid  under 
this  compact,  or  this  league,  or  this  confederation,  as 
under  the  former  confederation,  but  as  valid  under  this 
Constitution. 

None  of  the  States  in  accepting  the  instrument  used 
the  word  accede  which  Calhoun  had  slipped  into  his 
resolutions  to  describe  the  action  of  the  States  in 
accepting. 

"  The  natural  converse  of  accession,"  said  Webster,  "  is 
secession;  and  therefore,  when  it  is  stated  that  the  people  of 
the  States  acceded  to  the  Union,  it  may  be  more  plausibly 
argued  that  they  may  secede  from  it.  If  in  adopting  the 
Constitution  nothing  more  was  done  but  acceding  to  a  com 
pact  nothing  would  seem  necessary,  in  order  to  break  it  up, 
but  to  secede  from  the  same  compact.  But  the  term  is  wholly 
out  of  place.  .  .  .  The  people  of  the  United  States  have 
used  no  such  form  of  expression  in  establishing  the  present 
government.  They  do  not  say  that  they  accede  to  a  league, 
but  they  declare  that  they  ordain  and  establish  a  Constitu 
tion." 

"Let  then  his  first  resolution  tell  the  exact  truth;  let  it 
state  the  fact  precisely  as  it  exists;  let  it  say  that  the  people 
of  the  several  States  ratified  a  Constitution  or  form  of  govern 
ment;  and  then,  sir,  what  will  become  of  his  inference  in  his 
second  resolution,  which  is  in  these  words,  viz.,  'that  as  in  all 
other  cases  of  compact  among  sovereign  parties  each  has  an 
equal  right  to  judge  for  itself  as  well  of  the  infraction  as  of 
the  mode  and  measure  of  redress.'" 

This  stripped  the  nullification  argument  of  its  cun 
ning  assumptions  by  which  it  had  attempted  to  create  a 
new  constitution  unknown  to  the  people  who  ratified  and 
established  the  instrument  framed  in  1787.  Nullifica 
tion  was  revolution;  there  could  be  no  peaceful  nulli- 

320 


NULLIFICATION  AND  COMPROMISE 

fication ;  if  a  State  could  nullify  a  law  of  Congress,  she 
could  at  once  break  the  Constitution  and  the  Union.4 

"  To  begin  with  nullification  with  the  avowed  intent, 
nevertheless,  not  to  proceed  to  secession,  dismemberment,  and 
general  revolution,  is  as  if  one  were  to  take  the  plunge  of 
Niagara  and  cry  out  that  he  would  stop  half  way  down." 

Since  the  debate  with  Hayne,  Webster  had  evidently 
worked  out  every  instance  which  showed  that  when 
the  Constitution  was  adopted  it  was  intended  to  be  a 
form  of  government  and  not  a  treaty,  and  he  poured 
them  out  upon  Calhoun  in  a  flood.  We  can  give  here 
only  a  few  of  them. 

The  principle  of  nullification  was  that  the  States 
cannot  be  bound  by  any  act  of  Congress  if  the  constitu 
tionality  of  that  act  is  not  admitted  by  all ;  or,  in  other 
words,  that  no  single  State  is  bound,  against  its  own 
consent,  by  a  law  of  imposts  or  revenue.  That  was  the 
difficulty  under  the  old  confederation,  the  Congress 
could  collect  no  revenue  of  its  own  power;  it  was  de 
pendent  on  the  States  ;  and  the  Constitution  was  intended 
to  remedy  this  weakness  by  giving  Congress  the  power 
to  collect  imposts  or  revenue  without  the  consent  of 
particular  States  to  pay  the  debts  of  the  Revolution 
and  prevent  bankruptcy  of  the  national  treasury. 

The  Constitution  avowedly  acts  upon  individuals 
and  has  always  done  so.  The  confederation  acted  only 
upon  States.  The  Constitution  may  punish  individuals 
for  treason  and  all  other  crimes  of  the  code.  It  may 
tax  individuals  and  demand  military  service  of  them. 
All  this  clearly  distinguishes  it  from  a  confederation. 
It  makes  war  or  peace  for  the  individual,  and  that  no 

4  William  Drayton,  of  South  Carolina,  believed  in  seces 
sion,  but  denied  any  right  of  nullification.  A  State,  he  said, 
could  leave  the  Union  if  she  chose,  but  if  she  remained  in  the 
Union  she  must  obey  the  laws.  To  remain  in  the  Union  and 
attempt  to  nullify  acts  of  Congress  was  an  inconsistent  and 
impossible  position. 

21  321 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

State  may  do.  It  maintains  armies  and  navies,  and 
that  no  State  may  do.  It  regulates  commerce,  it  regu 
lates  the  individual  in  war  and  in  commerce,  and  this  is 
the  characteristic  of  a  government  and  not  of  a  con 
federacy. 

Under  the  Articles  of  Confederation  the  States  made 
promises  and  agreements.  In  the  Constitution  they 
make  none,  because  in  the  Constitution  it  is  the  people 
and  not  the  States  who  speak ;  and  they  place  commands, 
injunctions  and  prohibitions  upon  the  States. 

When  Congress  declares  war,  may  a  State  nullify 
that  war  and  remain  at  peace  ?  When  the  President  and 
Senate  make  peace,  may  a  single  State  continue  the 
war? 

In  the  convention  which  framed  the  Constitution 
there  was  a  party  in  favor  of  retaining  the  old  Articles 
of  Confederation,  and  the  convention  with  that  plan  of 
compact  before  them  deliberately  rejected  it  and  took 
the  plan  of  a  national  constitution. 

At  the  time  of  its  adoption  the  Constitution  was 
recommended  as  an  improvement  over  the  confederacy, 
because  under  the  confederacy  "  a  single  State  can  rise 
up,  and  put  a  veto  upon  the  most  important  public 
measures." 

At  the  time  the  Constitution  was  adopted  every  one 
knew  that  under  it  the  general  government,  that  is  the 
Supreme  Court  and  Congress,  would  be  the  final  inter 
preters  of  its  power.  This  was  announced,  notably  by 
Madison  in  Virginia,  by  Luther  Martin  in  Maryland, 
and  by  Pinckney  in  South  Carolina.  "  Everywhere  it 
was  admitted  by  friends  and  foes  that  this  power 
was  in  the  Constitution.  By  some  it  was  thought  dan 
gerous,  by  most  it  was  thought  necessary;  but  by  all 
it  was  agreed  to  be  a  power  actually  contained  in  the 
instrument." 

The  South  Carolina  Convention  had  set  forth  the 
rather  surprising  proposition  that  majority  govern 
ment  is  essentially  wrong,  that  it  is  a  tyranny,  and  that 

322 


NULLIFICATION  AND  COMPROMISE 

it  cannot  or  ought  not  to  be  maintained  in  the  United 
States.  This  was  a  favorite  theory  of  Calhoun,  and  he 
had  tried  to  show  its  soundness  by  a  metaphysical 
subtlety  which  in  the  end  was  nothing  but  a  jumble  of 
words.  He  made  the  distinction  between  absolute  ma 
jority,  by  which  he  meant  a  majority  in  Congress  repre 
senting  all  the  States,  and  a  majority  concurrent,  by 
which  he  meant  a  majority  in  a  single  State,  which  dis 
approved  of  some  act  of  the  absolute  majority  in  Con 
gress.  The  concurrent  majority  in  the  single  State 
must,  he  said,  overrule,  so  far  as  itself  was  concerned, 
the  absolute  majority  in  Congress.  It  was  simply  com 
ing  round,  as  he  was  always  doing,  to  his  old  proposi 
tion,  that  each  of  the  twenty-four  States  could  interpret 
and  nullify  all  Acts  of  Congress  as  they  pleased,  which 
was  the  old  Articles  of  Confederation  over  again,  and 
would  end  as  they  had  ended,  in  no  government  at  all. 
This  inevitable  result  of  his  theories  he  was  constantly 
trying  to  conceal  by  new  inventions  and  subtleties ;  and, 
indeed,  to  him  these  inventions  seemed  very  necessary ; 
for,  if  South  Carolina  was  to  protect  slavery  and  secure 
its  permanence  within  her  borders  for  the  future,  she 
must  establish  several  absurdities,  and  among  them  the 
doctrine  that  in  a  republic  the  minority  should  be  able 
to  outvote  the  majority. 

In  his  reply  to  Webster,  Calhoun  began  by  quoting 
a  passage  from  the  reply  to  Hayne  in  which  Webster  had 
said  that  as  far  as  concerned  slavery  he  would  let  it 
stand  as  he  found  it  in  the  Constitution ;  "  it  is  the 
original  bargain — the  compact — let  it  stand."  He  would 
not,  he  said,  "  evade  the  constitutional  compact." 

Washington  also,  Calhoun  said,  had  used  the  word 
accede  in  reference  to  the  admission  of  North  Carolina 
to  the  Union.  Nevertheless,  he  said,  he  would  strike 
out  these  words,  accede  and  constitutional  compact, 
from  the  resolutions  and  amend  them  in  accordance  with 
Webster's  ideas.  But  his  resolutions  as  amended  still 
asserted  that  the  Constitution  was  a  compact.  So  he 

323 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

was  again  juggling  and  coming  round  to  the  old  state 
ments. 

He  said  that  Webster  had  said  that  the  Constitution 
was  founded  on  compact,  but  that  it  is  no  longer  a 
compact ;  it  is  founded  on  compact,  but  not  a  compact 
results  from  it;  and  he  charged  this  as  a  confusion  of 
thought  impossible  to  understand.  But  it  was  per 
fectly  clear,  as  Webster  had  put  it,  and  there  was  no 
confusion  whatever.  He  had  said  that  when  the  people 
of  the  States  decided  to  send  delegates  to  a  convention 
to  make  a  new  general  government  that  was  an  agree 
ment  among  themselves  to  have  a  new  government;  it 
was  not  the  new  government  itself;  it  was  the 
social  compact,  as  the  old  writers  in  Europe  called 
it;  the  compact  or  consent  of  the  people  that  was 
supposed  in  theory  to  be  at  the  basis  of  all  governments, 
even  the  European  monarchies,  which  were  certainly 
regular  governments  and  not  compacts  or  leagues.  The 
result  of  this  agreement  or  social  compact  to  have  a 
government  in  our  case  was  that  the  delegates  agreed 
to  have  a  constitution  which  they  described  and  which 
described  itself  as  a  form  of  national  government  and 
not  a  compact. 

Much  of  Calhoun's  speech  consisted  of  this  sort  of 
misconstruing  of  Webster's  statements.  Calhoun  could 
not  keep  himself  from  subtleties.  For  a  time  he  tried 
to  take  Webster  on  his  own  ground,  and  bring  forward 
historical  instances  to  show  that  at  the  time  it  was 
adopted  the  Constitution  was  regarded  as  a  compact  or 
league.  He  took  a  week  to  prepare  for  his  answer  to 
Webster;  but  could  find  no  instances  for  his  purpose. 
He  quoted  some  passages  from  Burlamaqui,  a  European 
writer  of  nearly  half  a  century  before  the  Constitution, 
to  show  that  in  Europe  fundamental  laws,  or  what  he 
said  Webster  called  a  constitution,  were  sometimes 
spoken  of  as  covenants.  He  quoted  also  modern  in 
stances  long  since  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution,  in 
which  it  was  called  a  compact.  It  had,  of  course,  often 

324 


NULLIFICATION  AND  COMPROMISE 

been  called  a  compact  by  his  own  party  and  at  the  time 
of  the  Hartford  Convention  certain  New  England  people 
had  spoken  of  it  in  that  way.  But  none  of  these  in 
stances  were  to  the  point.  The  question  was,  What  had 
it  been  called  by  the  States  in  adopting  it;  what  did 
its  framers  and  its  adopters  say  that  it  was?  What 
people  had  said  long  before  its  adoption  or  what  they 
had  said  long  after  was  entirely  irrelevant. 

The  only  instance  he  could  find  for  his  side  was 
in  the  adopting  language  used  by  New  Hampshire  and 
Massachusetts,  which,  before  ratifying  and  adopting 
the  Constitution,  said  that  they  acknowledged  "  with 
grateful  hearts  the  goodness  of  the  Supreme  Ruler  of 
the  Universe,  in  affording  the  people  of  the  United  States 
an  opportunity  ...  of  entering  into  an  explicit  and 
solemn  compact  with  each  other,  by  assenting  to  and 
ratifying  a  new  constitution."  This  passage  had  been 
quoted  by  Webster  himself,  because  it  said  that  "  the 
people  of  the  United  States  entered  into  a  compact 
with  each  other ;  "  and  not  that  the  States  entered  into 
a  compact.  It  was  an  instance,  therefore,  for  Webster's 
side  and  not  for  Calhoun's,  and  when  the  adopting  lan 
guage  of  both  these  States  came  to  the  actual  adopting 
clause,  they  declared  that  they  ratified  a  constitution 
and  not  a  compact.  In  fact,  there  was  no  instance 
where  a  State  or  a  framer  had  declared  that  a  compact 
or  league  was  ratified. 

Having  failed  on  the  historical  portion  of  his  argu 
ment  and  conscious  that  he  could  accomplish  nothing  on 
this  point,  Calhoun  fell  back  on  his  metaphysical  subtle 
ties  and  suppositions,  which  constituted  most  of  his 
speech. 

Webster  had  called  attention  to  the  preamble  of  the  \ 
Constitution :  "  We,  the  people  of  the  United  States  of 
New  Hampshire,  etc.,  do  ordain,  etc.,"  as  showing  that  it 
was  the  people  of  all  the  States  and  not  the  States  indi 
vidually  that  had  made  the  Constitution.  Calhoun  said 
that  the  passage  must  mean  "  We  the  people  of  the  States 

325 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

united,"  and  not  "  of  the  United  States,"  and  this  "  in 
version  alone,"  he  said,  "  without  further  explanation, 
removes  the  ambiguity ; "  that  is,  brought  the  passage 
to  mean  what  he  wanted.  This  was  the  method  he 
and  nullifiers  were  constantly  adopting;  "  rewriting  the 
Constitution,"  as  Webster  called  it;  stating  what  it 
should  be  or  must  be,  without  regard  to  what  it  actually 
was  or  to  what  it  said  of  itself. 

Finally,  knowing  that  these  tricks  were  really  useless 
and  that  his  only  hope  was  to  say  something  that  might 
possibly  meet  the  overwhelmingly  strong  argument  that 
the  Constitution  was  adopted  because  the  old  Articles 
of  Confederation,  admittedly  a  compact,  were  so  weak 
a  government  as  to  be  worthless,  he  boldly  announced 
that  there  was  no  important  or  essential  difference  be 
tween  the  old  Articles  of  Confederation  and  the  Consti 
tution.  They  were  practically  the  same  sort  of  govern 
ment  ;  both  compacts  or  leagues ;  the  only  difference 
being  that  the  Constitution  was  rather  more  of  a  league 
than  the  articles  had  been. 

This  was  certainly  desperate  and  magnificent.  He 
actually  said  that  the  only  difference  between  the  two 
was  that  in  the  Articles  the  State  governments  had  made 
the  compact;  it  was  a  union  of  governments.  In  the 
Constitution  the  States  themselves  had  made  the  com 
pact  ;  it  was  a  union  of  sovereignties. 

"  The  confederation  was  a  contract  between  agents}— the 
present  Constitution  a  contract  between  the  principals  them 
selves  ;  or  to  take  a  more  analogous  case,  one  is  a  league  made 
by  ambassadors;  the  other  a  league  made  by  sovereigns." 
(Works,  vol.  ii,  p.  290.) 

That  was  the  most  strained  and  hair-splitting  of  all 
his  metaphysical  efforts.  He  avoided  and  dismissed 
from  consideration  the  mass  of  evidence  which  showed 
the  intention  of  the  framers  and  adopters  of  the  Con 
stitution  as  to  what  sort  of  government  they  thought 
they  were  creating;  and  he  cited  no  evidence  to  show 
that  they  thought  they  were  adopting  his  form.  He 

326 


NULLIFICATION  AND  COMPROMISE  « 

simply,  after  his  manner,  started  a  new  assumption;  a 
statement  as  to  what  the  Constitution  must  in  the  nature 
of  things  be,  and  then  began  to  draw  conclusions  from 
it,  the  conclusions  which  suited  him.  His  first  con 
clusion  (eminently  suited  to  him)  was  that  sovereignty 
must  necessarily  reside  "  in  the  parts  and  not  in  the 
whole  " ;  that  "  the  parts  are  the  units  in  such  a  system, 
and  the  whole  the  multiple ;  and  not  the  whole  the  unit 
and  the  parts  the  fractions."  And  so  he  went  on ;  for 
now  he  had  everything  his  own  way  and  could  work 
out  a  wonderful  system. 

It  was  not  legal  or  constitutional  reasoning,  but  the 
old  scholasticism ;  the  system  in  which  you  choose  your 
conclusion  and  then  select  any  assumption  or  admission, 
technically  called  an  axiom,  and  connect  the  axiom  with 
the  conclusion  by  a  chain  of  reasoning.  It  was  in  this 
way  that  Jonathan  Edwards  reasoned  out  in  the  most 
rigid  and  logical  manner  his  extraordinary  system  of 
theology  from  the  single  axiom,  "  everything  must  have 
a  cause."  From  that  same  axiom  he  might  also  have 
reasoned  out  any  other  conclusion  he  had  selected.5 

It  has  sometimes  been  said  by  Calhoun's  admirers 
that  Webster  was  so  overwhelmed  by  Calhoun's  argu 
ment  on  this  occasion,  that  he  attempted  no  reply  to  it  ; 
and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  no  reply  appears  in  the  edition 
of  Webster's  works  published  in  1851.  But  there  was 
a  reply,  and  an  excellent  one,  which  is  published  in  the 
Debates.6  Most  of  it  has  been  already  used  in  criti 
cisms  on  Calhoun's  argument;  and  one  sentence  of  it 
sums  up  all  the  rest. 

"He  is  compelled  to  reject  the  language  of  the  Constitu 
tion  itself  and  to  reject  also  the  language  used  by  the  people 
of  every  one  of  the  States,  when  they  adopted  it,  and  to  lay  the 
corner-stone  of  his  whole  argument  on  mere  assumption." 

8  Such  a  method  of  reasoning  is  about  the  same  at  that  of 
the  Scotchman  who  insisted  that  Shakespeare  was  a  Scotchman. 
When  asked  how  that  had  happened,  he  said,  "  Weel,  mon,  his 
abeelity  cairtainly  warrants  the  supposeetion." 

*  Gales  and  Seaton,  vol.  ix,  Part  I,  p.  775. 

327 


f  j]   THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

In  this  same  debate  a  speech  was  made  by  Senator 
Rives,7  of  Virginia,  which  is  noteworthy  as  being  a 
forcible  statement  of  a  view  of  the  Constitution  quite 
generally  accepted  by  Democrats  who  could  not  swallow 
Calhoun's  doctrine  and  who  were  opposed  to  secession. 
Rives  accepted  the  Virginia  and  Kentucky  resolutions, 
but  denied  that  there  was  any  intention  or  language  in 
them  favorable  to  either  nullification  or  secession.  They 
were,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  vague;  and  it  was  as  easy 
to  reason  as  he  did,  that  they  justified  only  protests  on 
the  part  of  a  State  against  unconstitutional  Acts  of 
Congress,  as  to  reason  that  they  justified  nullification. 
Rives  also  accepted  Calhoun's  first  resolution,  that  the 
Constitution  was  a  compact  made  by  the  States ;  but  he 
argued  that  having  made  that  compact  they  were  bound 
by  it,  and  the  form  of  government  made  by  their  com 
pact  was  not  a  league,  but  a  national  government  which 
admitted  of  neither  nullification  nor  secession  on  the  part 
of  a  State. 

To  assume,  he  said,  that  having  made  such  a  com 
pact  as  the  language  of  the  Constitution  describes,  any 
one  of  the  States  could  nullify  or  withdraw  from  it,  was 
an  impossible  and  unintelligent  legal  proposition.  By 
the  compact  the  States  had  surrendered  a  part  of  their 
original  sovereignty  to  the  Union ;  they  were  bound  by 
that  surrender;  they  could  not  draw  back  again  that 
surrendered  sovereignty.  He  recognized  as  fully  as 
Webster  that  there  was  a  community  and  sovereignty 
composed  of  the  people  of  the  United  States  as  distin 
guished  from  the  separate  communities  and  sovereignties 
called  the  individual  States;  and  he  showed  that  Cal- 
houn,  before  his  recent  change  of  ground,  had  been  of 
the  same  opinion. 

Calhoun's  theory  that  a  State,  as  a  party  to  a  com 
pact  composed  of  equals  with  no  superior  to  act  as 
judge,  could  at  its  pleasure  withdraw  the  sovereignty 

7  Gales  and  Seaton,  vol.  ix,  Part  I,  p.  494. 
328 


NULLIFICATION  AND  COMPROMISE 

it  had  delegated  to  the  Union,  was  refuted  by  Rives, 
as  a  mere  attempt  to  make  the  question  appear  to  be  one 
of  principal  and  agent. 

"  But  if  it  were  purely  a  question  between  South  Carolina 
and  the  General  Government,  South  Carolina  alone  could  not 
resume  the  powers  which  had  been  granted  to  the  latter.  She 
is  but  one  out  of  twenty-four  principals,  who  jointly  granted 
these  powers;  and  she  can  no  more,  so  far  as  constitutional 
right  is  concerned,  by  her  single  act,  resume  the  powers  thus 
jointly  granted  than  an  individual  citizen  of  a  State  can  resume 
the  powers  jointly  granted  by  himself  and  the  rest  of  the 
Society  to  their  State  Government."  (Gales  and  Seaton,  Part 
I,  p.  500.) 

The  arguments  were  now  all  in  on  the  great  ques 
tion  of  the  Union  and  secession,  the  question  over 
which  the  Civil  War  was  fought ;  and  since  that  debate 
in  February,  1833,  no  new  arguments  have  been  added. 
The  constitutional  text-books,  speeches  and  essays  which 
have  been  written  since  then  take  their  ideas  from  the 
two  great  debates,  the  one  in  1830,  the  other  in  1833, 
and  have  added  nothing  to  the  subject.  Hayne,  Cal- 
houn,  Rives  and  Webster  exhausted  it. 

All  the  converts  that  could  be  gained  by  reasoning 
had  been  gained,  and  henceforth  each  party  sullenly 
held  to  its  views.  The  large  division  of  the  American 
people  who  afterwards  formed  the  Republican  party  of 
the  Civil  War  accepted  Webster's  reasoning.  When 
to  these  were  added  the  Democrats  who  followed  the 
reasoning  so  well  stated  by  Rives,  War  Democrats,  as 
they  were  called  in  1861,  the  number  against  nullification 
and  secession  was  a  decided  majority,  as  indeed  it 
had  always  been  from  the  day  of  the  adoption  of  the 
Constitution. 

The  people  of  the  South  accepted  Calhoun's  meta 
physical  explanation  of  the  Constitution,  and,  as  we 
know,  fought  in  its  defence  and  sacrificed  their  lives  and 
property  for  four  years.  It  is  still  the  formally  accepted 
doctrine  in  the  South ;  but  exactly  how  widely  and  -with 
how  much  sincerity  might  be  difficult  to  ascertain. 

329 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

In  recent  years  a  curious  feeling  has  sprung  up  in  the 
North,  sometimes  spoken  of  as  the  conciliatory  attitude 
towards  the  South,  which  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  the 
southern  doctrine  of  the  right  of  a  State  to  secede  was 
universally  accepted  in  the  early  days  of  the  republic, 
and  that  the  southern  States  which  seceded  in  1861  were 
acting  upon  the  original  understanding.  Perhaps  the 
briefest  and  most  condensed  statement  of  this  feeling 
has  been  made  by  Senator  Lodge,  of  Massachusetts. 

"  When  the  Constitution  was  adopted  by  the  votes  of  the 
States  at  Philadelphia  and  accepted  by  the  votes  of  States  in 
popular  conventions,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  there  was  not  a  man 
in  the  country  from  Washington  and  Hamilton  on  the  one 
side,  to  George  Clinton  and  George  Mason  on  the  other,  who 
regarded  the  new  system  as -anything  but  an  experiment  entered 
upon  by  the  States  and  from  which  each  and  every  State  had 
the  right  peaceably  to  withdraw,  a  right  which  was  very  likely 
to  be  exercised."  (Lodge,  Life  of  Webster,  p.  176.) 

To  the  same  effect  is  the  essay,  "  Constitutional 
Ethics  of  Secession,"  by  Mr.  Charles  Francis  Adams, 
also  of  Massachusetts,  who*  commanded  a  Union  regi 
ment  in  the  Civil  War.  Both  of  these  gentlemen  have 
always  been  in  sympathy  with  the  old  Abolition  party  in 
Massachusetts,  which  never  had  any  respect  for  the 
Constitution  and  would  have  brushed  it  aside  because 
it  protected  negro  slavery. 

This  feeling  is  extraordinary,  could  occur  perhaps 
only  among  Americans,  and  is  part,  no  doubt,  of  the 
feeling  by  which  General  Lee,  of  the  Confederacy,  is 
growing  in  reputation  and  popularity  among  northerners 
while  Lincoln  is  becoming  more  and  more  admired  in 
the  South.  This  curious  exchange  of  heroes,  an  ex 
change  which  could  take  place  only  among  a  great 
people,  shows  first  of  all  how  wisely  and  well  the  Civil 
War  questions  were  settled,  how  naturally  united  the 
North  and  South  really  are,  and  what  remarkable  apti 
tude  Americans  have  for  settling  such  terrible  difficulties 
in  a  satisfactory  and  permanent  way.  But  that  part  of 

330 


NULLIFICATION  AND  COMPROMISE 

the  feeling  which  leads  to  the  statement  that  secession 
was  an  original  right  under  the  Constitution,  while  most 
creditable  to  northern  good  nature,  is,  nevertheless,  an 
historical  inaccuracy,  if  not  a  monstrosity.  It  would 
never  have  occurred  if  people  had  resorted  for  infor 
mation  to  the  original  debates  of  Congress  instead  of 
relying  on  suppositions  and  guesses  or  brief  individual 
statements  that  do  not  go  over  the  whole  ground. 

This  notion,  that  before  the  Civil  War  no  one  denied 
the  right  of  a  State  peacefully  to  withdraw  from  the 
Union,  or  that  there  was  an  understanding  to  that  effect, 
has  been  supposed  to  receive  much  support  from  an  old 
law  book  ("Rawle  on  the  Constitution,"  first  pub 
lished  in  1825)  which  inculcated  the  doctrine  of  the  right 
of  secession,  and  was,  it  was  alleged,  a  text-book  at  the 
West  Point  Military  Academy,  where  Lee,  Jefferson 
Davis  and  other  leaders  of  the  Confederacy  were  stu 
dents.  If  the  government  of  the  Union  in  its  own  mili 
tary  academy  taught  secession  to  the  officers  of  its 
army,  it  could  not  afterwards,  it  was  said,  find  very 
much  fault  with  them  for  an  attempt  to  break  up  the 
Union.  Certainly  a  government  that  would  deliberately, 
for  any  length  of  time,  teach  its  own  destruction  to  its 
officials,  would  be  an  anomaly  in  history. 

Close  investigation,  however,  has  shown  that  Rawle 
on  the  Constitution  was  used  at  the  Military  Academy 
for  only  one  year,  immediately  after  its  publication,  and 
for  only  the  graduating  class  of  that  year.  Jefferson 
Davis,  who  graduated  in  1827,  said  that  Kent's  Commen 
taries,  a  work  teaching  consolidation  of  the  Union,  was 
the  text-book  at  that  time,  and  it  so  continued  until 
i8;6.8 

Rawle  was  merely  one  of  the  minority  of  that  time 
who  favored  secession.  His  argument  so  far  as  he 
gives  it  in  his  book  inspires  no  respect.  He  had  appa 
rently  made  no  investigation  of  the  history  of  the  Con- 

8  See  Colonel  Latta's  excellent  pamphlet,  "  Was  Secession 
Taught  at  West  Point,"  pp.  32-37. 

331 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

stitution,  of  the  way  in  which  it  was  adopted,  or  even  of 
its  language.  His  argument  is  like  Calhoun's,  a  meta 
physical  one,  based  not  on  what  the  Constitution  actually 
is  by  its  own  words  and  by  the  intention  and  language  of 
the  people  who  adopted  it,  but  on  what  he  should  pre 
sume  the  Constitution  must  be  on  general  principles. 

"  To  deny  this  right  (of  secession)  would  be  inconsistent 
with  the  principles  upon  which  our  political  systems  are 
founded,  and  which  is,  that  the  people  have  in  all  cases  a  right 
to  determine  how  they  will  be  governed.  This  right  must  be 
considered  as  an  ingredient  in  the  original  composition  of  the 
general  government,  which,  though  not  expressed,  was  mutually 
understood.  ...  It  was  also  known  though  it  was  not 
avowed  that  a  State  might  withdraw  itself." 

In  other  words,  he  admits  that  the  Constitution  itself 
does  not,  by  its  language,  give  the  right  of  secession, 
but  that  such  a  right,  "  though  not  expressed,  was  mut 
ually  understood,"  outside  of  the  instrument ;  and  "  must 
be  considered  an  ingredient "  of  it.  Such  a  method 
of  reasoning  is  not  legal ;  it  is  not  reasoning  at  all,  but 
mere  vagueness  and  supposition.  To  assert  without 
proof  a  secret  understanding  that  a  law  shall  be  other 
wise  than  it  expresses  itself  is  a  method  by  which  any 
statute,  document  or  constitution  could  be  readily  de 
stroyed.  In  the  appendix  to  his  book,  though  professing 
to  reprint  the  Constitution  entire,  he  leaves  out  the 
preamble  which  describes  the  Constitution  as  established 
by  "  We  the  people  of  the  United  States." 

So  far  as  there  was  any  understanding  at  the  time  of 
the  adoption  of  the  Constitution,  it  was  that  the  instru 
ment  consolidated  the  Union  and  prevented  secession. 
In  Pennsylvania  Findlay  objected  to  accepting  the  Con 
stitution  because  it  "  amounted  to  a  consolidation 
and  not  a  confederation  of  States.  Wilson  recom 
mended  it  because  it  was  "  not  a  compact,"  but  "  an 
ordinance,  an  establishment  of  the  people."  Patrick 
Henry  in  Virginia  objected  to  it  because  it  was  "  a 
consolidated  national  government  and  not  a  compact." 

332 


NULLIFICATION  AND  COMPROMISE 

Mason  objected  to  it  because  "  having  once  consented 
to  it  we  cannot  recede  from  it."  Two  of  the  delegates 
from  New  York  withdrew  from  the  convention  because 
the  Constitution  as  framed  by  the  majority  was  a  "  con 
solidation  of  the  United  States  in  one  government." 
In  Maryland,  Luther  Martin,  who  had  been  a  member 
of  the  convention,  objected  because  it  created  a  national 
government  and  weakened  the  States.  In  Virginia  and 
in  New  York  it  was  proposed  to  ratify  the  Constitution 
on  condition  that  if  certain  changes  in  it  were  not  made 
the  States  would  have  the  right  to  secede.  But  this 
conditional  ratification  could  not  be  passed  and  the  con 
vention  voted  to  accept  the  Constitution  unconditionally. 
In  the  newspaper  essays  written  by  Hamilton,  Madison 
and  Jay,  the  Constitution  is  recommended  for  adoption 
because  it  is  an  establishment  of  government  and  not  a 
compact  or  confederacy.  All  these  historical  facts  point 
to  a  general  understanding,  not  that  a  State  could 
secede,  but  that  secession  was  impossible  except  by 
violence  and  revolution.9 

A  brief  summary  of  all   the   various   doctrines  of 
Union  and  disunion  may  be  found  useful. 

1.  The  Right  of  Revolution,  set  forth  in  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  and  never  denied  or  questioned  in  America.    An 
inalienable  right  of  all  communities  to  overthrow  a  government 
or  Constitution  which  has  become  intolerable. 

2.  The  Historical  Doctrine  of  Indissoluble  Union  as  main 
tained  by  the  majority  of  the  Convention  that  framed  the  Con 
stitution,  announced  by  the  Convention  in  their  circular  letter 
submitting  the  Constitution  for  adoption  by  the  States,  urged 
by  the  minority  as  an  objection  to  the  Constitution  at  the  time 
of  its  adoption,  maintained  by  the  authors  of  the   Federalist, 
enlarged   and   expounded   by    Webster  and   confirmed   by   the 
Civil  War.     This  doctrine  holds  that  the  Constitution  was  not 
a  league,  compact  or  confederation,  but  a  government,  a  con- 

9  Hare,  Constitutional  Law,  vol.  i,  pp.  73-85;  Elliott's 
Debates  (2nd  Ed.,  1876),  vol.  i,  pp.  350-395,  vol.  ii,  pp.  in, 
112,  261,  607-627,  vol.  iii,  pp.  630,  656;  Latta,  "  Was  Secession 
Taught  at  West  Point,"  pp.  16-22. 

333 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

solidated  union ;  that  it  was  formed  by  the  people  of  the  States 
and  not  by  the  State  Governments:  that  it  was  intended  to 
remedy  the  defects  of  the  old  Articles  of  Confederation  by 
creating  a  government  that  would  act  on  individuals,  that  is 
on  the  people,  not  on  the  States ;  that  the  Constitution  describes 
itself  as  a  government  and  not  as  a  league  or  confederacy, 
limits  the  powers  of  the  States,  makes  acts  of  Congress  the 
supreme  law  of  the  land,  and  the  Supreme  Court  and  Congress 
the  interpreters  of  the  Constitution.  No  State  under  this 
doctrine  has  the  right  to  nullify  acts  of  Congress  or  peaceably 
secede ;  and  the  Union  can  be  broken  only  by  revolution  and 
the  sword. 

3.  The  Theory  of  the  Virginia  and  Kentucky  Resolutions, 
that  the  Union  and  the  Constitution  having  been  created  by 
the  States,  and,  there  being  no  judge  or  umpire  to  settle  dis 
putes,  each  State, 'in  cases  of  palpable  and  dangerous  violations 
of  the  Constitution,  is  entitled  to  decide  for  itself  the  mode  and 
measure  of  redress.    This  theory  disposed  of  the  historical  facts 
and  circumstances  at  the  time  of  the  framing  and  adoption  of 
the  Constitution  and  also  the  Constitution's  description  of  the 
government  and  the  Union  by  ignoring  them  and  saying  nothing 
about  them ;  and  probably  this '  Virginia  and  Kentucky  theory 
meant  no  more  than  the  Right  of  Revolution. 

4.  The  Hartford  Convention  Theory  that  the  Union  could 
be  dissolved  either  by  the  right  of  revolution  or  by  "  equitable 
arrangement,"  that  is  by  all  the  States  agreeing  to  dissolve  it. 
A  self-evident  proposal,  hardly  amounting  to  a  theory. 

5.  The  Hayne  Theory,  that  the  Constitution  was  nothing 
more    than    a   compact,    contract    or    agreement    made    by    the 
States    as    parties,    and    that    the    General    Government    thus 
created  was  another  party  to  the  contract.     All  parties  being 
equal    sovereigns,    and   there   being   no   common    arbiter,    each 
State   had   the   right   to   decide   when   the   compact   had   been 
violated  and  could  annul,  so  far 'as  herself  was  concerned,  any 
acts    of    Congress    deemed    unconstitutional,    and    forbid    and 
prevent  them  being  enforced -within  her  borders.     This  theory 
was  based  on  the  Virginia  and  Kentucky  Resolutions;  but  the 
part  of  it  which  made  the  General  Government  a  party  to  the 
compact  was   generally   regarded   as   an   absurdity   and   never 
maintained  by  anyone  but  Hayne. 

6.  The  Calhoun  or  Metaphysical  Theory,  the  same  in  out 
line  as  Hayne's,  but  without  making  the  General  Government 
a  party  to  the  compact,  and  supported  by  arguments  different 
from    Hayne's.      It    ignores    the    Constitution's    description    of 
itself    and    the   historical    circumstances    at   the    framing    and 
adoption  of  the  Constitution  as  irrelevant,  and  argues  that  in 

334 


NULLIFICATION  AND  COMPROMISE 

the  nature  of  things  the  Constitution  must  necessarily  be  a 
league  of  States  with  the  right  of  each  State  to  decide  for 
itself  when  the  Constitution  has  been  violated  (i)  because  in 
the  nature  of  things  it  is  impossible  to  conceive  of  a  division 
of  power  without  an  equal  right  in  each  to  judge  of  the  extent 
of  the  power  allotted  to  each,  (2)  because  tne  words  union, 
federal,  united,  imply  a  combination  of  sovereignties,  not  an 
association  of  individuals,  (3)  because  sovereignty  is  in  its 
nature  indivisible,  and  therefore  each  of  the  States  must  have 
retained  its  sovereignty  and  cannot  have  surrendered  it  or  its 
final  right  to  decide  to  the  General  Government,  (4)  because 
this  method  of  each  State  retaining  its  right  of  self-protection 
and  its  right  to  nullify  unconstitutional  acts  of  Congress  and 
forbid  their  enforcement  within  its  borders  will  prevent 
tyranny  and  make  the  most  perfect  of  all  unions  from  which 
there  will  be  no  desire  to  break  away.  This  theory  is  said  to 
be  still  nominally  held  by  many  people  in  the  Southern  States. 

7.  The   Rives    or   Virginia   Theory   accepted   the    Virginia 
and   Kentucky   Resolutions,   not   as   justifying   nullification   or 
secession,   but   as   justifying  only   protests   by   a    State   against 
unconstitutional  acts  of  Congress.     This  theory  admitted  that 
the  Constitution  was  a  compact  between  the  States ;  but  having 
made  that  compact  the  States  were  bound  by  it,  and  the  form 
of  government  created  by  the  compact  was  not  a  league,  but  a 
national   government,    which    admitted   neither    of   nullification 
nor   secession   on   the  part   of   a    State.     This   was   a    favorite 
doctrine  with  the  Union  or  War  Democrats  in  1861. 

8.  The  Secret  Understanding.     An  unavowed,  tacit  under 
standing  "  not  expressed  but  mutually  understood,"  that  a  State 
had  the  right  to  secede.     This  idea  was  mentioned  in  Rawle's 
book  on  the  Constitution  published  in  1825 ;  and  is  similar  to 
the  statement   frequently   made   in  the   South  that  in  spite  of 
anything   in   the    Constitution    it   was    understood   that   if   the 
South  could  not  honorably  remain  in  the  Union  she  would  be 
allowed  peaceably  to  secede.     As  it  ignores  law,  facts  and  the 
words  of   the    Constitution    and   is   a   mere   verbal   improbable 
statement    of    an    impression    or    understanding    it    is    hardly 
arguable. 

9.  The    Abolitionist    Theory.     This    ignored    the    historical 
circumstances  of  the  framing  and  adoption  of  the  Constitution 
as  irrelevant  and  held  that  the  Constitution  contained  from  the 
beginning    an    immoral    and    inhuman    compact    or    agreement 
guaranteeing  the  existence  of  slavery  in  the  Southern  States, 
and   guaranteeing   the   return   of   fugitive   slaves,   that   no   one 
was  bound  by  an  immoral  compact,  and  therefore  it  would  'be 
better  to  break  up  the  already  invalid   union,   separate   from 

335 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

the  Southern  States  and  form  a  Northern  confederacy  free 
from  any  guarantees  about  slavery  except  absolute  freedom  to 
the  slave.  This  theory  was,  of  course,  abandoned  after  the 
Civil  War,  except  by  the  Abolitionist  historians  who  sometimes 
accept  the  Secret  Understanding  and  maintain  that  before  the 
Civil  War  secession  was  supposed  to  be  allowable.  The  radical 
position  the  Abolitionists  took  with  regard  to  slavery  made  it 
difficult  for  them  to  accept  the  historical  circumstances  of  the 
adoption  of  the  Constitution  making  an  indissoluble  Union, 
because  an  indissoluble  Union  made  slavery  legal  under  the 
Constitution. 

But  we  are  passing  beyond  the  real  subject  in  hand 
and  must  return  to  what  happened  in  the  Senate  after 
Webster  and  Calhoun  had  finished  their  arguments. 
The  advantage  seemed  decidedly  with  Webster  and 
Jackson.  One  had  proved  South  Carolina  wrong  and 
the  other  was  ready  to  stop  nullification  and  secession, 
nip  them  in  the  bud  by  force  if  South  Carolina  really 
meant  to  resist  by  force.  This  was  the  feeling  of  many 
people  and  Webster  was  of  the  same  mind,  and  prepared 
to  let  things  take  their  natural  course  under  the  Force 
Bill.  But  others  were  alarmed  at  the  prospect  of  bring 
ing  the  question  to  such  an  issue.  They  seem  to  have 
really  thought  not  only  that  the  whole  idea  of  a  protec 
tive  tariff  was  in  danger  of  being  abolished  forever  by 
the  opposition  of  South  Carolina,  but  that  that  State, 
unless  appeased,  would  start  a  rebellion  throughout  the 
whole  South  which  could  not  be  stopped  by  the  rest  of 
the  country,  and  would  break  up  the  Union. 

Henry  Clay,  who  was  now  in  the  Senate,  took  this 
view,  took  upon  himself  to  represent  and  act  for  the 
people  who  held  it,  and  he  came  forward  with  a  new 
measure  of  a  kind  for  which  he  was  already  famous 
and  in  which  he  profoundly  believed.  In  his  mind  the 
increasing  danger  of  secession  and  disunion  must  be 
checked,  not  by  bringing  it  to  a  head  and  fighting  it  out, 
once  for  all,  but  by  compromises.  In  1820  he  had 
secured  the  passage  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  which 
checked  the  northward  extension  of  slavery  and  quieted 

336 


NULLIFICATION  AND  COMPROMISE 

the  slavery  agitation  for  twenty-five  years.  He  now 
brought  forward  his  second  compromise  measure,  which 
was  a  bill  gradually  to  reduce  the  rates  of  the  protective 
tariff  every  two  years  until  in  1842,  when  the  rates 
having  been  all  brought  down  to  twenty  per  cent,  ad 
valorem,  that  rate  should  be  continued.  This,  he  said, 
would  remove  the  grievance,  the  so-called  unfairness 
of  the  tariff,  of  which  the  Carolinians  complained,  save 
the  Union,  and  at  the  same  time  save  the  tariff  itself  and 
the  principle  of  protection,  which  otherwise  might  be 
swept  away  at  this  or  the  next  session. 

This  bill,  it  will  be  observed,  practically  abandoned 
the  principle  of  protection.  It  enacted  a  tariff  for 
revenue  only  and  by  reducing  all  duties  to  the  same  level 
abandoned  that  discrimination  in  favor  of  special  indus 
tries  which  is  said  to  be  "  the  only  true  and  practical 
mode  of  protection."  The  bill  was  acceptable  to  a 
majority  in  both  Houses  of  Congress.  Many  who  dis 
liked  protection  saw  in  the  scare  about  nullification  a 
good  chance  to  get  rid  of  the  tariff;  and  they  did  not 
mind  encouraging  the  nullifiers  by  yielding  to  them. 
Clay's  bill  known  as  the  "  Compromise  tariff  "  became 
a  law;  and  it  was  many  years  before  the  protective 
tariff  was  restored. 

Calhoun  had  placed  himself  in  an  awkward  position ; 
and  if  events  had  taken  their  course,  as  Webster  was 
willing  they  should,  Calhoun  might  have  been  in  a 
dangerous  position;  for  there  is  no  telling  what  old 
Jackson  in  his  wrath  might  not  have  done  with  him. 
Calhoun  understood  this,  and  sought,  it  is  said,  the 
assistance  of  Clay,  with  whom  he  had  not  been  on  speak 
ing  terms  for  many  years. 

That  Henry  Clay,  the  father  and  creator  of  the 
American  protective  tariff  system,  from  whose  speeches 
all  subsequent  advocates  of  protection,  the  world  over, 
have  drawn  their  arguments,  should,  in  the  year  1833, 
have  become  so  frightened  by  the  South  Carolina  nulli 
fiers  as  to  kill  his  own  pet  system,  was  certainly  a  rather 
22  337 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

curious  event  in  our  political  history.  He  said  he  did 
it  to  save  the  tariff ;  but  it  is  rather  difficult  to  discover 
in  what  respect  he  saved  it  or  that  it  needed  saving. 
He  said  he  did  it  to  save  the  Union  from  dissolution ; 
but  instead  of  tending  to  save  the  Union,  he  probably 
went  a  long  way  in  encouraging  the  formation  of  the 
Southern  Confederacy  which  brought  on  the  Civil  War 
of  1861. 

Webster  was  deeply  disappointed  in  Clay.  He  had 
relied  on  him  to  support  the  Constitution  and  the  Union. 
He  had  written  him  a  letter  a  couple  of  years  before, 
urging  him  to  come  back  to  the  Senate,  where  his  services 
would  soon  be  needed  on  the  right  side.  It  has  been 
said  that  Clay  wanted  to  curry  favor  with  the  South 
and  gain  votes  for  his  insatiable  desire  for  the  Presi 
dency;  that  finding  many  in  favor  of  compromise  he 
took  up  the  idea  because,  as  things  were,  Webster 
and  Jackson  seemed  likely  to  have  a  great  triumph  over 
the  nullifiers  and  such  a  triumph  might  draw  off  Clay's 
followers  to  Webster,  and  possibly  give  him  the  nomi 
nation  for  the  Presidency.  The  first  draft  of  the  com 
promise  tariff  bill  which  he  handed  about  among  poli 
ticians  for  examination  contained  an  explicit  renuncia 
tion  of  the  right  of  Congress,  and  pledged  that  body 
not  to  pass  any  measures  for  internal  improvements  or 
the  protection  of  manufacturing  industries.  Finding 
that  his  friends  were  not  prepared  to  go  so  far,  he 
struck  out  that  part  of  the  bill.10 

So  he  was  ready,  it  seems,  to  sacrifice  everything 
to  the  South ;  and  even  when  restrained  by  his  followers 
he  sacrificed  a  great  deal.  It  was  a  great  triumph 
for  Calhoun  and  the  Carolina  nullifiers.  They  were 
entirely  satisfied.  Congress  had  yielded  to  their  threat 
to  nullify  its  laws  and  had  withdrawn  the  laws  of  which 
they  had  complained.  This  was  in  exact  accord  with 
Calhoun's  theory.  He  had  said  that  he  loved  the  Union, 

10  Webster,  Works,  vol.  xvii,  p.  557;  vol.  xvi,  pp.  213,  228, 
293,  294,  391. 

338 


NULLIFICATION  AND  COMPROMISE 

that  he  did  not  want  to  dissolve  it,  and  that  the  way 
to  prevent  its  dissolution  was  for  Congress  not  to  pass 
laws  injurious  to  a  particular  section ;  if  such  laws  were 
passed  the  section  injured  had  under  the  Constitution  the 
right  to  nullify  them  unless,  as  in  this  instance,  Congress 
should  recognize  that  right  by  wisely  withdrawing  the 
laws. 

Webster  was  profoundly  disgusted.  If  Clay's  motive 
was  to  cut  Webster  and  Jackson  out  of  a  triumph  he 
certainly  succeeded.  It  would  have  been  Jackson's  one 
really  useful  act,  one  instance  where  his  violence  would 
have  been  of  benefit  to  his  country,  if  he  had  been 
allowed  to  go  on  and  crush  nullification  by  force.  For 
some  years  Webster  had  been  convinced  that  the  plan 
of  a  southern  confederacy  had  been  received  with  favor 
by  a  great  many  of  the  political  men  of  the  South.  He 
was  for  nipping  it  in  the  bud,  and  crushing  it  in  Jack- 
sonian  fashion,  without  the  slightest  compromise  or 
yielding  to  this  first  practical  exhibition  of  it  in  South 
Carolina.  He  made  against  Clay's  tariff  bill  what  was 
probably  a  very  interesting  speech ;  but  as  it  was  against 
the  leader  of  a  faction  oi  his  own  party,  he  was  induced 
not  to  publish  it  for  the  sake  of  saving  appearances.11 
He  afterwards  regretted  that  he  had  yielded  to  this 
request. 

He  supported  the  Force  Bill  and  it  was  passed.  The 
plan  of  the  Clay  and  Calhoun  compromise  seems  to  have 
been  to  settle  the  difficulty  by  passing  both  bills,  the 
one  yielding  to  the  nullifiers,  the  other  threaten 
ing  them.  But  after  the  tariff  bill  was  passed, 
yielding  all  that  the  nullifiers  demanded,  and  they  had 
rescinded  their  ordinance  of  nullification  in  March  of 
that  year,  the  Force  Bill  was  a  superfluity.  There  was 
nothing  for  it  to  act  upon ;  and  the  rising  generation  of 
the  South  was  led  to  believe  in  both  the  practical  effi 
cacy  as  well  as  the  theoretical  soundness  of  the  doctrines 
of  secession. 

"Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xvi,  p.  294. 
339 


XIII 

THE    REMOVAL    OF    THE    DEPOSITS,    AND    A    CHANCE    FOR 
THE   PRESIDENCY 

IT  was  about  this  time  that  the  National  Republicans 
took  the  name  of  Whigs.  It  was  the  time-honored  Eng 
lish  term  for  those  who  opposed  the  king  and  upheld 
the  cause  of  liberty,  and  the  Republicans  regarded  them 
selves  as  opposing  the  tyrant  Jackson.  The  nullifiers 
also  took  the  same  name,  because  they  also  regarded 
themselves  as  upholding  the  original  liberty  and  inde 
pendence  of  the  States  against  both  Jackson  and  Feder 
alists  like  Webster. 

The  name  Whig  was  not  of  much  assistance  to  the 
Republicans.  Clay's  escapade  with  the  tariff  and  other 
circumstances  involved  them  in  confusion  and  factions 
for  many  years;  and  in  the  next  Presidential  election 
they  did  not  nominate  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency. 

Webster's  position  in  politics  was  now  a  peculiar  one. 

had  opposed  President  Jackson's  veto  of  the  United 
States  Bank  charter  and  was  certainly  not  in  sympathy 
with  most  of  the  President's  plans  and  theories.  But 
on  the  question  of  nullification  the  two  men  were  in 
perfect  accord.  Jackson  personally  thanked  Webster 
for  supporting  the  administration  on  the  occasion  of  the 
Force  Bill.  Other  members  of  the  Democratic  party 
who  took  the  same  view  as  the  President  on  that  subject 
went  out  of  their  way  to  make  themselves  agreeable  to 
Webster  and  to  show  their  gratitude  and  admiration. 

When  Congress  adjourned  in  the  spring  of  that  year 
1833,  Webster  made  a  tour  of  the  West  as  far  as  Ohio. 
Everywhere  the  people  flocked  to  see  him.  He  was 
given  dinners  and  banquets  and  made  speeches.  The 
enthusiasm  for  him  was  entirely  outside  of  factions  and 
party  lines,  although  that  was  a  time  of  very  bitter  party 

340 


THE  REMOVAL  OF  THE  DEPOSITS 

divisions  in  the  West.  "  Mr.  Webster,"  said  the 
National  Intelligencer,  "  has  wrought  little  less  than  a 
miracle  upon  the  party  feuds  and  divisions  of  the  west 
ern  country.  He  has  fairly  extinguished  the  one  and 
obliterated  the  other."  He  was  accepted  as  an  Ameri 
can  who  had  stood  for  an  undivided  country ;  as  an  ora 
tor  and  a  statesman  of  whose  talents  alone  every  one 
without  regard  to  party  might  be  proud.  It  shows  how 
strong  in  the  North  and  West  was  the  Union  senti 
ment  as  well  as  to  what  an  exalted  and  unusual  position 
above  party  lines  Webster's  peculiar  ability  had  raised 
him. 

In  fact,  he  was  becoming  so  very  popular  among  the 
western  Democrats  that  many  of  their  eastern  brethren 
were  jealous  and  rather  resented  his  friendliness,  or,  as 
they  thought,  too  great  influence  with  President  Jack 
son.  The  President,  through  Mr.  Livingston,  who  had 
been  his  secretary  of  state,  intimated  that  he  hoped  Mr. 
Webster  would  continue  his  support.  A  Democratic 
Senator  handed  a  list  of  applicants  for  an  office  to  Web 
ster  and  asked  him  to  look  it  over.  This  was  a  great 
token  of  confidence  under  the  Jaeksonian  spoils  system. 
But  Webster  declined  the  honor.  He  wished  to  be 
under  no  obligations  to  the  President;  he  was  by  no 
means  prepared  to  become  a  Democrat;  and  much 
preferred  his  very  illustrious  distinction  of  independence. 

He  knew  that  there  could  be  no  real  or  lasting 
alliance  between  himself  and  Jackson ;  and  he  knew  that 
a  question  would  soon  be  raised  on  which  they  would 
be  very  far  apart ;  for  it  was  generally  known  in  Wash 
ington  that  Jackson  intended  to  remove  the  government 
deposits  from  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  the  renewal 
of  whose  charter  he  had  vetoed  the  year  before. 

Jackson  and  his  friends  could  see  in  the  Bank  only  an 
immense  moneyed  power  with  such  practical  control  of 
the  currency  of  the  country  that  it  might  become  as 
powerful  as  the  government  and  be  used  for  dangerous 
purposes.  In  his  fierce  hostility  to  it  he  was  not  content 

34i 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

with  vetoing  the  renewal  of  its  charter  and  allowing  it 
to  die  a  natural  death  when  the  old  charter  expired  in 
1836.  He  believed  that  it  had  entered  the  political 
field  and  had  used  its  vast  wealth  and  influence  to  pre 
vent  his  re-election.  He  wanted  to  wreak  his  vengeance 
on  it  at  once ;  and  the  most  terrible  blow  he  could  inflict, 
now  that  he  had  been  re-elected,  was  to  direct  his 
secretary  of  the  treasury  after  a  certain  date  to  leave 
no  more  of  the  government  funds  on  deposit  with  it. 
It  had  been  created  to  receive  those  deposits.  To  re 
move  them  would,  he  thought,  kill  it  at  once,  and  it 
would  be  incapable  of  harm  either  to  him  or  to  the 
country  during  the  four  years  that  remained  of  its  old 
charter. 

The  Bank  had  been  eminently  successful  during  its 
whole  existence.  It  had  safely  guarded  the  government 
deposits,  acted  as  fiscal  agent  of  the  government,  kept 
the  paper  currency  at  par,  facilitated  exchange  and  pre 
vented  the  necessity  of  moving  great  masses  of  specie 
from  one  part  of  the  country  to  the  other.  The  busi 
ness  of  the  country,  both  agricultural  and  commercial, 
was  at  that  time  particularly  prosperous,  the  veto  of 
the  renewal  of  the  Bank  charter  had  not  seriously 
affected  it.  But  the  sudden  removal  from  the  Bank  of 
$8,000,000  of  government  deposits,  an  enormous  sum  in 
those  days,  before  it  could  wind  up  its  affairs  in  a 
regular  way,  brought  on  a  most  disastrous  financial 
panic,  deranged  all  the  other  banks  of  the  country,  and 
spread  ruin  on  all  sides.  Jackson's  own  followers  were 
aghast  at  the  result,  and  if  the  work  were  to  be  done 
over  again  would,  Webster  said,  have  restrained  their 
hero.  They  now,  however,  glibly  laid  the  blame  on  the 
Bank  itself  for  all  the  distress.  It  had,  they  said,  cur 
tailed  its  loans  and  deliberately  brought  on  the  panic 
to  extort  a  renewal  of  its  charter  from  the  fears  of  the 
people.  The  Bank,  it  is  too  true,  had  curtailed  its  loans, 
and  had  been  obliged  to  curtail  them,  because  of  the 
attacks  upon  it,  because  of  the  veto  of  its  recharter,  and 
because  the  public  money  had  been  withdrawn. 

342 


THE  REMOVAL  OF  THE  DEPOSITS 

They  may  have  been  right  in  desiring  to  bring  the 
Bank  to  an  end  and  not  let  it  continue  indefinitely.  But 
they  should  have  brought  it  to  an  end  gradually  and 
given  time  to  Congress  and  public  opinion  to  develop 
as  a  substitute  some  one  of  the  other  systems  accom 
plishing  the  same  results,  which  they  could  immediately 
put  in  its  place  to  carry  on  its  work.  But  this  was 
not  Jackson's  method.  He  had  no  way  but  that  of 
sudden  violence.  So  now,  when  the  Bank  had,  as  he 
thought,  opposed  his  imperious  will,  he  knew  of  no 
method  but  of  rushing  on  it  with  all  the  injury  he  could 
inflict. 

The  friendly  messages  and  the  attempt  to  put  Web 
ster  under  obligations  were  evidently  intended  to  secure 
his  assistance  when  the  clash  with  the  Bank  should  come. 
But  it  was  absolutely  out  of  the  question  to  delude  the 
conservative  Webster  into  such  a  wild  plan.  The  crash 
came,  Jackson's  secretary  of  the  treasury,  Duane,  would 
not  remove  the  deposits.  Jackson  dismissed  him  and 
appointed  in  his  place  Mr.  Taney,  afterwards  chief 
justice,  who  was  sufficiently  complying  in  character  to 
be  the  President's  tool,  and  the  deposits  were  stopped  in 
September,  1833. 

The  only  substitute  for  the  Bank  that  Jackson  and 
his  friends  had  devised  was  to  deposit  the  public  money 
in  certain  State  banks  scattered  over  the  country  and  try 
to  organize  them  to  act  together  as  the  fiscal  agent  of 
the  government;  to  make,  in  short,  a  league  of  banks  to 
take  the  place  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States.  It  was 
a  plan  concocted  by  the  President  and  his  advisers  alone 
without  public  discussion  or  the  advantage  of  debate 
among  the  able  financial  minds  of  the  country.  It 
afterwards  required  nearly  ten  years  for  the  statesmen 
of  the  country  to  work  out  the  modern  sub-treasury 
plan  under  which  the  money  of  the  general  government 
is  not  deposited  in  any  bank,  but  kept  in  the  hands 
of  the  collecting  officers  in  different  parts  of  the 
country  under  bonds,  who  pay  over  the  money  when 
ordered  by  the  Treasury  Department  at  Washington. 

343 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

But  Jackson,  in  his  backwoods  ignorance  and  con 
ceit,  thought  himself  competent  to  settle  the  whole 
matter  off-hand  by  means  of  that  plain  commonsense 
of  ignorant  people  which  had  been  so  much  talked  of 
in  his  party. 

When  he  stopped  the  deposits  there  was  no  law 
authorizing  the  placing  of  them  in  State  banks.  The 
only  law  on  the  subject  authorized  the  placing  of  them 
in  the  Bank  of  the  United  States.  In  substituting  his 
own  will  for  the  law,  Jackson  characteristically  created 
a  system  in  which  he  was  to  select  the  favored  State 
banks.  In  other  words,  the  whole  money  power  of 
the  government  was  brought  into  his  hands,  to  be  con 
trolled  by  him  without  any  regulation  of  law.  He  had 
not  in  any  sense  separated  the  government  from  bank 
ing  institutions,  but  had  created  an  arrangement  as 
fully  capable  of  being  used  for  corrupt  purposes  as  the 
Bank  of  the  United  States. 

Such  a  stupid  substitute  had  not  the  slightest  effect 
in  averting  the  financial  panic  which  instantly  followed 
the  removal  of  the  deposits.  The  disasters  were  wide 
and  far-reaching.  The  State  banks  were  not  in  any 
sense  like  the  national  banks  of  our  time,  whose  notes 
are  secured  by  United  States  bonds  deposited  at  Wash 
ington.  The  State  banks  were  mere  State  corporations, 
often  with  little  or  no  capital  and  no  definite  or  legal 
security  except  the  ability  or  cunning  of  their  managers. 
Many  of  them  were  "  wild-cat  banks," — that  is  to  say, 
they  bought  up  cheaply  printed  bills  which  they  issued 
under  their  name  and  used  for  buying  western  land. 
Having  bought  the  land  for  this  depreciated  money, 
they  sold  the  land  for  good  money,  hoping  that  their 
own  bills  would  not  come  back  to  them  for  redemption. 
If  too  many  of  the  bills  came  back  the  bank  failed,  and 
its  managers  went  somewhere  else  and  started  another 
one. 

Such  was  the  crudity  of  American  finance  in  those 
days  of  no  national  banks,  no  sub-treasury  plan  for  keep- 

344 


THE  REMOVAL  OF  THE  DEPOSITS 

ing  the  government  funds;  and  now  that  the  United 
States  Bank  was  about  to  pass  away,  nothing  but  the 
State  banks  with  only  such  security  as  their  managers 
chanced  to  have.  Of  course,  all  the  State  banks  were 
not  wild-cats.  Here  and  there,  especially  in  old  com 
munities,  there  were  conservative  institutions ;  and  Jack 
son  sent  out  agents  to  find  out  which  they  were.  But 
the  best  of  them  were  apparently  none  too  good.  Of 
those  selected  by  the  President  not  a  few  lost  their 
heads  by  the  possession  of  so  much  money,  and  were 
led  into  all  manner  of  speculations  which  entailed  a 
long  series  of  losses  and  depression  upon  the  communi 
ties  in  which  they  were  situated. 

The  intelligent  lawyers  and  educated  men  of  the 
President's  party  were  in  the  position  of  the  man  who 
had  the  bear  by  the  tail.  He  dared  not  let  go  and  it 
was  dangerous  to  hold  on.  They  invented  ingenious 
theories  for  the  President  and  the  infatuated  masses 
that  supported  him.  They  explained  that  the  real  inten 
tion  was  to  have  nothing  but  specie  as  the  money  of  the 
country;  and  to  accomplish  this  by  destroying  the 
United  States  Bank,  making  use  of  the  State  banks  for 
a  while,  and  then  destroying  them,  so  that  there  would 
be  no  wicked  banks  of  any  kind  and  the  dear  people 
would  have  as  money  nothing  but  pure  and  honest  gold 
and  silver,  as  in  the  ideal  ages  which  had  existed  at 
some  time  no  one  knew  exactly  when.  One  of  Web 
ster's  most  useful  speeches  was  his  ridicule  of  this 
after-thought  to  account  for  the  President's  fury,  and 
his  luminous  exposition  of  the  absolute  necessity  in 
modern  civilization  of  banks  of  some  sort  and  of  a 
mixed  currency,  partly  specie  and  partly  paper  re 
deemable  in  specie.  He  had  a  most  happy  faculty  for 
explaining  all  these  functions  of  finance ;  and  it  is  un 
fortunate  that  the  limits  of  this  book  forbid  lengthy 
quotations. 

When  driven  from  every  other  defence  of  their 
chief,  the  followers  of  Jackson  finally  said  that  his 

345 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

financial  methods  constituted  an  experiment,  which  he 
and  they  were  making.  This  vagueness  was  perhaps 
the  best  defence  they  could  have  made ;  for  the  principal 
value  of  an  experiment  is  often  that  it  shows  what  ought 
not  to  be  done.  In  that  respect  Jackson  eminently  suc 
ceeded.  Webster  seized  eagerly  on  this  admission  of  an 
experiment,  and  it  will  be  found  used  in  his  speeches 
with  telling  sarcasm. 

But  all  the  President's  palpable  mistakes,  and  all 
the  disasters,  the  corruption  of  the  spoils  system,  and 
the  financial  ruin  could  not  shake  the  faith  of  the  great 
Democratic  majority  in  the  supposed  mysterious  wis 
dom  of  "  Old  Hickory."  The  reasoning  of  high  intellects, 
like  Clay  and  Webster,  was  futile  against  him.  Thou 
sands  who  saw  his  mistakes  and  disapproved  of  his 
acts  could  not  bring  themselves  to  oppose  him,  because 
of  the  widespread  superstition  that  the  hero  of  New 
Orleans  must  be  right,  and  even  when  doing  wrong 
would  bring  it  out  right  in  the  end.  It  was  another 
instance  to  show  how  our  people,  in  spite  of  their  natural 
shrewdness  and  ability,  can  at  times  be  taken  in  by  mere 
fakers. 

When  Webster  returned  in  December,  1833,  to  his 
place  in  the  Senate,  with  the  full  flood  of  financial  dis 
aster  in  the  form  of  letters,  complaints  and  petitions, 
pouring  in  as  the  result  of  the  removal  of  the  deposits, 
his  task  as  chairman  of  the  committee  on  finance  was  a 
heavy  one.  His  duties  and  position  as  a  public  man 
were  becoming  more  burdensome  than  ever  with  less 
prospect  of  favorable  results.  Nothing  seemed  to  be 
accomplished;  nothing  seemed  possible  of  accomplish 
ment  in  the  face  of  the  infatuation  of  the  people  and 
Congress  for  Jackson.  The  disasters  brought  upon  the 
country  under  Democratic  rule  seemed  as  if  they  might 
give  the  Whigs  some  chance  of  securing  the  Presidency 
or  a  majority  in  the  Congress ;  but  there  were  as  yet  no 
signs  of  it. 

The  memorials  and  petitions  which  flooded  Congress 
346 


Courtesy  of  the  S.  S.  McClure  Company 

GENERAL    JACKSON    WITH    THE    HERMITAGE    IN    THE    BACKGROUND 


THE  REMOVAL  OF  THE  DEPOSITS 

demanded  as  a  remedy  for  the  general  commercial  dis 
tress  that  the  deposits  be  at  once  returned  to  the  Bank 
of  the  United  States,  to  remain  there  at  least  until  the 
Bank's  charter  expired  in  1836.  Some  of  these  memo 
rials  were  brought  to  Washington  by  deputations  of 
citizens  from  various  parts  of  the  country,  who  called 
on  the  President  to  lay  before  him  the  situation  and 
implore  him  to  restore  the  deposits.  They  were  re 
ceived  with  outbursts  of  Jacksonian  rage  and  wild 
denunciations  of  the  Bank  and  its  president,  Nicholas 
Biddle.  Jackson  would  pace  the  room  while  he  stormed 
against  the  Bank  which  he  declared  was  the  cause  of  all 
the  trouble.  "  Insolvent,  do  you  say  ?  What  do  you 
come  to  me  for  then  ?  Go  to  Nicholas  Biddle.  He  has 
all  the  money." 

"  Why  am  I  teased  with  committees  ?  Here  I  am  receiv 
ing  two  or  three  anonymous  letters  every  day  threatening  me 
with  assassination  if  I  don't  restore  the  deposits  and  recharter 
the  bank — the  abominable  institution — the  monster  that  has 
grown  up  out  of  circumstances,  and  has  attempted  to  control 
the  government.  I've  got  my  foot  upon  it,  and  I'll  crush  it. 
Am  I  to  violate  my  constitutional  oath?  Is  it  to  be  expected 
that  I  am  to  be  turned  from  my  purpose?  Is  Andrew  Jackson 
to  bow  the  knee  to  the  golden  calf  as  did  the  Israelites  of  old? 
I  tell  you  if  you  want  relief  go  to  Nicholas  Biddle."  (Parton, 
Life  of  Jackson,  vol.  iii,  p.  552.) 

These  outbursts  of  rage  were  deliberately  posed ; 
for  when  published  they  were  found  very  effective  with 
the  masses,  who,  in  their  infatuation,  considered  them 
additional  proof  of  the  heroic  honesty  of  "  Old  Hick 
ory  "  and  his  devotion  to  the  people's  rights.  After  one 
of  these  fine  outbursts  to  a  deputation,  and  the  deputa 
tion  had  departed,  Jackson  sent  a  messenger  to  bring 
back  the  spokesman,  who  found  "  Old  Hickory  "  laugh 
ing  over  the  result.  "  Did  not  I  manage  them  well  ?  " 
he  exclaimed.  He  had  actually  called  back  the  spokes 
man  for  the  mere  pleasure  of  a  chuckle  with  him  over 
the  scene. 

347 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

Here  is  another  that  went  the  rounds  of  the  news 
papers,  to  the  great  edification  of  his  followers : 

"  In  the  name  of  God,  Sir !  what  do  the  people  think  to 
gain  by  sending  their  memorials  here?  If  they  send  ten  thou 
sand  of  them  signed  by  all  the  men,  women  and  children  in 
the  land  and  bearing  the  names  of  all  on  the  gravestones,  I 
will  not  relax  a  particle  from  my  position."  (Parton,  Life  of 
Jackson,  vol.  iii,  p.  553.) 

In  Congress  the  President's  defenders,  like  Benton, 
attributed  all  the  panic  and  financial  disaster  to  the 
secret  and  wicked  contrivances  of  the  monster  Bank ; 
and  thousands  of  deluded  people  actually  believed  this, 
and  sent  memorials  to  Congress  approving  of  the  re 
moval  of  the  deposits.  The  Whigs  denounced  the  re- 
|moval  and  demanded  that  the  deposits  be  at  once 
restored.  Calhoun,  now  completely  alienated  from  the 
President,  attacked  him  in  strained  and  artificial  oratory, 
as  a  public  thief,  not  a  bold,  warlike  plunderer,  but  a 
sneaking  pilferer  who  had  robbed  the  treasury.  Clay, 
with  more  eloquence  and  with  all  his  old-time  felicity 
of  language,  bewailed  the  fate  of  his  bleeding  constitu 
tion  and  country  in  the  hands  of  a  man  who  set  all 
laws  and  constitutions  at  defiance.  After  reading  his 
speech  "Old  Hickory"  exclaimed,  "Oh,  if  I  live  to 
get  these  robes  of  office  off  me,  I  will  bring  the  rascal 
to  a  dear  account." 

The  majority  in  the  Lower  House  was  with  the 
President;  but  in  the  Senate  it  was  slightly  against 
him.  To  the  Whigs  the  financial  distress  and  con 
fusion  seemed  likely  to  be  endless  so  long  as  the  crude 
arrangement  continued  of  allowing  the  deposits  to  re 
main  in  the  hands  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  or 
the  President  to  be  put  in  this  bank  or  that,  or  in  no 
bank  at  all,  without  any  regulation  of  law. 

If  Jackson  had  contented  himself  with  vetoing  on 
reasonable  grounds  the  renewal  of  the  Bank's  charter, 
let  it  wind  up  its  affairs  in  the  next  four  years,  and 
meanwhile  quietly  discussed  other  methods  of  public 
finance,  it  is  probable  that  comparatively  little  harm 

348 


THE  REMOVAL  OF  THE  DEPOSITS 

would  have'  been  done.  But  to  cause  one  panic  by 
wrecking  the  Bank  suddenly  by  the  removal  of  the 
deposits,  and  then  a  series  of  panics  by  his  lawless  pet 
bank  schemes,  besides  demoralizing  half  the  nation  by 
his  lawless  reasons  and  inflammatory  appeals  to  class 
hatred,  was — well,  it  was  the  natural  method  of  his 
temperament  and  his  extreme  ignorance  of  all  such 
things.  His  intellect  extended  very  little  farther  than 
mere  cunning. 

The  subject  of  the  removal  of  the  deposits  was 
debated  almost  every  day  in  Congress  from  December 
to  June.  Webster  spoke  sixty-four  times,  and  probably 
never  did  such  heavy  and  long-continued  work  for  any 
other  cause,  legal  or  political.  Such  a  long  and  arduous 
debate  over  an  event  that  should  never  have  happened, 
that  only  a  madman  could  have  committed,  seems  now 
like  an  extraordinary  waste  of  time  and  energy.  But, 
no  doubt,  the  debate  in  the  end  had  its  educational  value. 
Webster  and  the  Whigs  exerted  themselves,  they  felt 
bound  to  put  forward  almost  superhuman  exertions  to 
save  the  business  interests  of  the  country  from  absolute 
ruin,  to  reveal  to  the  people  the  Jacksonian  fallacies  of 
finance.  Their  speeches  read  now  like  very  unneces 
sary  attempts  to  explain  the  evident,  but  they  were 
necessary  at  the  time.  The  Democrats  labored  to  save 
their  party  by  upholding  Jackson  and  attacking  the 
Bank. 

The  Whigs  always  held  fast  to  their  faith  in  the 
Bank  as  the  only  salvation  for  American  finance.  With 
out  our  experience  with  the  sub-treasury  plan  and  our 
system  of  national  banks  scattered  over  the  country, 
they  very  naturally  clung  to  the  great  institution  which 
had  brought  order  out  of  chaos,  and  steadied  the  coun 
try's  currency  and  business  methods  for  so  many  years. 
In  reality  the  debate  in  Congress  was  continued  through 
out  the  Union  for  over  ten  years  afterwards,  or  until  the 
sub-treasury  plan  was  finally  adopted  in  1846.  The 
masses  of  our  people  have  always  been  very  slow  to 

349 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

learn  governmental  finance,  as  witness  our  flounderings 
in  the  silver  and  greenback  crazes. 

The  majority  in  the  Senate  against  the  administra 
tion  passed  Henry  Clay's  resolution  censuring  both  the 
President  and  Secretary  for  violating  the  Constitution 
and  the  laws  in  the  removal  of  the  deposits.  This 
brought  on  another  scene  of  violence  with  Jackson,  and 
another  long  and  useless  debate.  He  sent  to  the  Senate 
a  protest  against  their  resolution.  The  Protest  was  a 
very  famous  document  in  its  day,  prepared  for  him  by 
some  lawyer  of  his  party,  and  accompanied  by  a  demand 
that  it  be  entered  on  the  journal  of  the  Senate.  In 
other  words,  the  Senate  was  ordered  by  the  President 
to  enter  the  whole  protest  upon  their  journal  as  a  re 
buke  to  themselves  which  they  had  accepted.  The  Czar 
of  Russia  would  hardly  attempt  to  go  farther  in  control 
of  a  legislature.  Such  an  attempt  to  muzzle  the  Senate 
and  say  that  as  a  representative  and  legislative  body 
they  should  not  pass  a  resolution  expressing  their  opin 
ion  of  Presidential  action,  and  that  they  must  enter  a 
rebuke  for  it  on  their  minutes,  seems  now  so  ridiculous 
as  hardly  to  deserve  notice.  It  was  going  the  length 
of  saying  that  if  the  Senate  should  see  the  President 
borrowing  money  on  the  credit  of  the  United  States, 
issuing  commissions  to  office,  enlisting  troops,  or  mak 
ing  war  or  peace  without  authority,  they  could  not  say 
so  without  his  permission. 

But  in  the  condition  of  things  at  that  time,  the  ex 
traordinary  infatuation  of  a  majority  of  the  people  for 
Jackson,  and  his  wonderful  power  and  influence,  the 
Protest  was  regarded  by  the  Whigs  as  a  very  serious 
matter.  There  was  only  a  majority  of  four  or  five 
against  it  in  the  Senate,  and  it  was  feared  that  the 
absurd  despotism  of  the  Protest  might  become  a  prece 
dent  and  destroy  the  balance  of  the  government  by 
altering  the  relations  between  the  Senate  and  the  Execu 
tive.  Four  votes,  one  way  or  the  other,  would  settle  it. 

Webster  and  his  party  felt  that  they  were  fighting 
350 


THE  REMOVAL  OF  THE  DEPOSITS 

for  a  great  principle.  In  the  extreme  Democratic  ex 
citement  of  the  last  few  years  the  Senate  had  become 
unpopular.  There  were  people  extreme  enough  to  wish 
to  see  it  depressed  or  crippled.  "  It  is  already  de 
nounced,"  said  Webster,  "  as  independent  of  the  people 
and  aristocratic."  In  the  animated  debate  on  the  Pro 
test  the  unusual  spectacle  was  presented  of  the  Senate 
defending  itself  and  its  right  to  an  opinion  against  the 
aggressions  of  the  President.  Such  a  situation  was 
surely  another  tribute  to  the  popularity  and  power  of 
Jackson. 

Webster's  speech  against  the  Protest  is  the  only  one 
of  this  long  debate  which  posterity  has  been  inclined  to 
regard  as  of  any  permanent  value ;  and  it  is  now  known 
principally  from  one  or  two  famous  passages  of  elo 
quence  in  it.  Finding  that  no  one  seemed  prepared 
to  give  a  lawyer-like  answer  to  the  wild  principles  of 
constitutional  law  which  the  President  was  trying  to 
establish,  Webster  took  the  task  upon  himself.  He 
writes  to  his  old  friend  Mason,  that  no  one  has  as  yet 
really  answered  the  President,  and  he  supposes  that  he 
must  do  it. 

By  ingenious  subtleties  and  distorted  quotations  the 
Protest  had  maintained  the  principles  that  the  Senate 
could  not  by  resolution  express  its  opinion  that  the 
President  had  violated  the  law  or  the  Constitution ;  that 
such  a  resolution  was  an  attempt  to  try  and  convict 
the  President  without  the  form  of  an  impeachment; 
that  the  public  money,  like  all  other  public  property,  is 
necessarily  in  the  control  of  the  President;  that  Con 
gress  cannot  take  out  of  the  executive  department  the 
custody  of  the  public  property  without  an  assumption 
of  executive  power ;  that  the  President  was  essentially 
the  guardian  of  the  public  property  and  the  Constitu 
tion,  and  responsible  for  the  conduct  of  every  person 
employed  in  the  government.  In  other  words,  as  Web 
ster  said,  there  was  but  one  officer  in  the  whole  govern 
ment.  The  President  was  everybody.  He  was  the 

35i 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

State,  and  the  Government  of  the  United  States  had 
become  extremely  simple.  There  were  no  more  checks 
and  balances  and  complications. 

It  hardly  now  seems  necessary  to  take  the  trouble 
to  destroy  Jackson's  argument.  But  it  was  necessary 
at  that  time.  The  Protest  had  taken  quite  a  hold  on  the 
masses.  That  part  of  it  which  described  the  resolution 
of  the  Senate  as  an  attempt  to  convict  the  President 
without  the  form  of  an  impeachment  trial  was  a  very 
clever  Jacksonian  pose  for  popular  feeling,  and  led  the 
Democracy  to  think  that  the  innocent  "  old  hickory  " 
hero  was  being  unfairly  treated  and  unjustly  tried. 
Then  it  was  "  hurrah  for  Jackson,"  and  the  hats  were 
thrown  up.  They  did  not  see  that  the  denial  of  the 
right  of  the  Senate  to  pass  such  a  resolution  was  a 
denial  of  its  right  to  express  an  opinion  on  public 
questions. 

The  cunning  pose  of  the  whole  Protest  was  that 
"  Old  Hickory,"  more  than  any  other  department  of 
government,  represented  the  people,  and  that  in  order 
to  protect  their  interests  he  must  have  charge  and  con 
trol  of  everything,  and  no  one  must  interfere  with 
him.  To  carry  out  this  idea  the  Protest  had  set  forth 
most  astounding  principles,  at  which  most  of  the  Sena 
tors  were  aghast,  and  could  only  storm  and  rage  at  them 
in  general  language  until  Webster  by  his  cool,  dispassion 
ate  analysis  pricked  the  bubbles  in  detail,  and  gave 
reasons  which  could  be  accepted  by  the  most  intelligent 
minds. 

It  was  curious  that  the  Democratic  party,  the  oppo 
nents  of  strong  government,  the  supposed  enemies  of 
despotism,  the  party  of  strict  construction,  State  rights, 
and  weak  nationality,  should  have  gone  over,  body,  soul 
and  spirit,  to  the  control  of  a  man  despotic  in  both 
opinion  and  practice,  the  loosest  and  vaguest  construc- 
tionist  of  the  Constitution  that  has  ever  been  known, 
an  opponent  to  the  death  of  State  rights,  nullification 
and  secession,  and  who  attempted  to  centre  the  whole 

352 


THE  REMOVAL  OF  THE  DEPOSITS 

national  government  in  himself  and  assume  more  power 
than  any  European  monarch  outside  of  Russia  dared  to 
grasp. 

It  seems  now  hard  to  believe  that  the  Protest,  even  if 
accepted  by  the  Senate  in  1834,  could  ever  have  become 
a  precedent  in  the  sense  that  its  crude  doctrines  would 
have  become  a  part  of  recognized  constitutional  inter 
pretation.  At  any  rate,  it  was  not  accepted,  and  pos 
terity  has  no  doubt  had  the  less  difficulty  in  rejecting  its 
errors  because  of  that  beautifully  cogent  reasoning  of 
Webster's,  that  detailed  reasoning  which  was  always 
such  a  delight  to  Chief  Justice  Marshall  and  Judge 
Story.  Strong  speeches  were  made  against  the  Protest 
by  Senators  like  Poindexter,  Ewing,  Calhoun,  Clay  and 
Bibb.  But  all  of  them  were  mere  violent  attacks  or 
somewhat  vague  denunciation.  They  had  neither  the 
eloquence,  the  literary  perfection  in  words,  nor  that 
detailed  reasoning  close  to  the  admitted  facts,  which  is 
the  really  valuable  thing  in  the  end;  and  which  in  the 
case  of  this  speech  of  Webster's  has  long  ago  passed 
into  the  text-books  and  the  decisions  of  courts. 

It  was  not  one  of  his  long,  tremendous  orations ;  but 
was  one  of  his  best ;  a  keen,  brilliant  little  piece  of  well- 
balanced  oratory,  complete  in  itself,  and  leading  up  to  a 
strong  conclusion.  There  are  several  passages  in  it 
which  are  still  often  quoted,  though  few  know  the  speech 
from  which  they  are  taken.  The  fine  description  of  the 
sentinel  on  the  watch  tower  of  liberty,  and  the  descrip 
tion  of  the  spirit  of  liberty,  are  both  in  this  speech, 
and  also  the  passage  on  the  British  empire  which 
occurred  immediately  after  the  almost  equally  famous 
passage  on  the  American  Revolution.  He  had  been 
insisting  on  the  importance  of  resisting  the  first  step  of 
encroachment  upon  the  balanced  powers  of  the  Con 
stitution. 

"  Those   fathers  accomplished  the   Revolution   on   a   strict 
question  of  principle.    The  Parliament  of  Great  Britain  asserted 
a  right  to  tax  the  colonies  in  all  cases  whatsoever;  and  it  was 
23  353 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

precisely  on  this  question  that  they  made  the  Revolution  turn. 
The  amount  of  taxation  was  trifling,  but  the  claim  itself  was 
inconsistent  with  liberty;  and  that  was  in  their  eyes  enough. 
It  was  against  the  recital  of  an  act  of  Parliament  rather  than 
against  any  suffering  under  its  enactments  that  they  took  up 
arms.  They  went  to  war  against  a  preamble.  They  fought 
seven  years  against  a  declaration.  They  poured  out  their 
treasures  and  their  blood  like  water,  in  a  contest  against  an 
assertion  which  those  less  sagacious  and  not  so  well  schooled 
in  the  principles  of  civil  liberty  would  have  regarded  as  barren 
phraseology,  or  mere  parade  of  words.  They  saw  in  the  claim 
of  the  British  Parliament  a  seminal  principle  of  mischief, 
the  germ  of  unjust  power;  they  detected  it,  dragged  it  forth 
from  underneath  its  plausible  disguises,  struck  at  it;  nor  did 
it  elude  either  their  steady  eye  or  their  well-directed  blow,  till 
they  had  extirpated  and  destroyed  it  to  the  smallest  fibre.  On 
this  question  of  principle,  while  actual  suffering  was  yet  afar 
off,  they  raised  their  flag  against  a  power  to  which  for  purposes 
of  foreign  conquest  and  subjugation  Rome,  in  the  height  of 
her  glory,  is  not  to  be  compared;  a  power  which  has  dotted 
over  the  surface  of  the  whole  globe  with  her  possessions  and 
military  posts,  whose  morning  drum-beat,  following  the  sun 
and  keeping  company  with  the  hours,  circles  the  earth  with 
one  continuous  and  unbroken  strain  of  the  martial  airs  of 
England."1  (Works,  Edition  1851,  iv,  p.  109.) 

The  idea  of  the  Protest  was  never  heard  of  again 
after  Jackson  disappeared  from  politics ;  JbtUt  Webster 
and  the  Whigs  were  unable  to  have  the  deposits  returned 
to  the  Bank  of  the  United  States.  Webster  introduced 
a  bill  to  recharter  the  Bank ;  but  as  it  would  surely 
have  been  rejected  in  the  Lower  House  if  it  passed  the 
Senate,  he  did  not  press  it  to  a  vote.  The  deposits 
remained  with  the  State  banks,  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States  came  to  an  end  with  the  expiration  of  its  charter 

1  Referring  to  this  speech  Harvey  reports  Webster  as  say 
ing  :  "  I  got  that  impression  as  I  stood  on  the  walls  of  Quebec 
for  the  first  time,  and  casting  an  imaginary  glance  over  the 
broad  extent  of  that  dominion,  thought  of  the  magnitude  of  the 
power  that  governed  half  a  civilized  world  by  her  superior 
intellect.  And  I  was  proud,"  he  added,  "  that  the  blood  of 
the  Englishman  flowed  in  my  veins."  (Harvey,  Reminiscences, 
P-  I44-) 

354 


A  CHANCE  FOR  THE  PRESIDENCY 

in  1836,  the  panic  wore  itself  out  and  was  followed 
almost  immediately  by  other  panics,  and  the  financial 
system  remained  in  disorder  until  the  Democrats  finally 
worked  out  the  sub-treasury  plan  in  1846. 

The  next  year,  1835,  nominations  for  the  Presi 
dency  were  again  in  order.  It  had  long  been  one  of 
the  pet  desires  of  President  Jackson  to  have  his  friend 
and  supporter,  the  Vice-President,  Mr.  Martin  Van 
Buren,  succeed  him,  or  at  least  be  nominated  by  the 
Democrats.  He  had  his  way  in  this  as  in  everything 
else  in  his  party.  The  Democrats  nominated  Van 
Buren ;  and  it  was  included  by  Jackson  among  his  vic 
tories  when  he  retired  to  his  plantation  in  Tennessee 
and  boasted  that  he  had  won  all  his  battles,  defeated 
all  his  enemies,  and  rewarded  all  his  friends. 

As  for  the  Whigs,  they  were  in  their  usual  state  of 
confusion.  They  could  not  very  well  have  a  grand 
convention  of  the  whole  party,  because  they  still  had 
among  them  the  faction  of  anti-Masons  who  would 
destroy  all  harmony.  Their  nominations  were  made 
here  and  there  by  a  State  Legislature  or  a  caucus  of 
the  Legislature  where  they  felt  themselves  particularly 
strong.  Clay  having  been  defeated  in  the  last  election 
was^  out  of  the  race  for  the  present.  In  Ohio  the 
Whigs  nominated  Mr.  McLean,  but  he  was  not  greeted 
anywhere  with  much  enthusiasm. 

In  Massachusetts  the  Whigs  inclined  to  nominate 
Webster;  and  he  was  constantly  receiving  letters  from 
every  part  of  the  Union  from  people  who  were  eager  to 
vote  for  him  and  urged  his  candidacy  in  the  strongest 
language.  He  had  been  in  this  delicate  position  for 
many  years ;  the  forces  that  bring  a  nomination  surging 
round  him  but  never  quite  reaching  the  mark.  He  had 
a  proper  ambition  for  such  a  distinguished  honor;  his 
feelings  were  moved  and  aroused  by  the  popularity  and 
applause ;  but  it  was  very  difficult  for  him  to  say  or  do 
anything  directly.  A  man  in  such  a  position  usually 
tries  to  say  as  little  as  possible.  All  he  could  do  was 

355 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

to  correspond  discreetly  with  particular  friends  and 
say  that  he  had  made  up  his  mind  "  to  be  passive  and 
satisfied  with  any  result." 

The  nomination  by  the  Whigs  of  the  Massachusetts 
Legislature  was  made  in  due  time  and  Webster  was  par 
tially  before  the  country  as  a  candidate  for  the  Presi 
dency.  If  the  Whigs  in  some  other  States  should  nomi 
nate  him  he  would  be  in  a  strong  position  as  a  candidate. 
Pennsylvania  was  an  important  State,  where  the  Whigs 
showed  great  enthusiasm  for  him,  and  they  seemed 
likely  to  hold  a  nominating  convention  of  the  modern 
kind  if  not  prevented  by  the  anti-Mason  faction.  At  a 
public  meeting  in  Chester  County,  the  Whigs  and  anti- 
Masons  united  and  appointed  delegates  favorable  to 
Webster,  and  at  a  similar  meeting  in  Alleghany  County 
the  anti-Masons,  though  in  the  ascendant,  elected  Web 
ster  delegates. 

All  would  have  been  well  probably  if  the  fanatical 
anti-Masons,  not  content  with  Webster  being  entirely 
cutside  of  and  out  of  sympathy  with  the  dreaded  secret 
order,  had  not  insisted  on  asking  him  questions.  In  the 
insanity  of  their  delusion  they  feared  he  might  not  be 
willing  to  purge  the  government  offices  of  every  trace 
and  suspicion  of  masonry.  The  spoils  system  intro 
duced  by  Jackson  had  poisoned  the  whole  country  with 
the  idea  that  the  election  of  a  President  would  accom 
plish  nothing  unless  he  made  a  clean  sweep  of  all  offices 
from  clerks  and  scrub  women  up  to  secretaries  of  state. 
The  Whigs  admired  Webster's  intellect  and  statesman 
ship,  his  large  grasp  of  the  greatest  problems  and  his 
ardent  patriotism.  They  were  ready  to  vote  for  him 
and  even  Democrats  were  inclined  to  vote  for  him ;  but 
unfortunately  a  large  section  of  his  own  party  felt 
in  their  small  deluded  consciences  that  all  his  great 
talents  were  as  nothing  compared  to  the  importance  of 
his  opinion  on  Masons  in  public  office.  They  were  not 
willing  to  rely  on  his  efficiency,  ability  and  patriotism, 
that  had  been  tested  a  thousand  times,  but  must  needs 

356 


A  CHANCE  FOR  THE  PRESIDENCY 

demand  that  he  promise,  if  elected,  to  confine  himself 
"  to  anti-Masons  in  nominations  to  office." 

It  was  the  most  trying,  petty  and  contemptible  posi 
tion  in  which  such  a  broad-gauge  man  could  be  placed. 
He  tried  to  go  as  far  as  he  could  without  disgust.  He 
assured  them  that  he  had  no  sympathy  whatever  with 
Masonry  or  secret  societies  in  general,  that  there  could 
be  "no  question  of  the  constitutional  right  of  those 
who  believed  secret  societies  to  be  moral  or  political 
evils  to  seek  to  remove  those  evils  by  the  exercise  of  the 
elective  franchise."  But  he  would  go  no  farther. 

"  What  a  Chief  Magistrate  must  do,  and  ought  to  do,  so 
far  as  he  is  elected  on  Anti-Masonic  principles,  and  in  regard 
to  portions  of  the  country  where  those  principles  prevail,  can 
be  no  matter  of  doubt  to  you  or  to  me,  or  to  any  man  who 
reflects,  and  who  means  to  act  with  candor  and  honesty  toward 
those  who  support  him.  I  hope  no  one  hesitates  to  believe 
that  ].  am  altogether  incapable  of  disappointing  in  that 
respect  any  natural  and  just  expectation  which  friends  may 
form.  But  it  does  not  consist  with  my  sense  of  duty  to  hold 
out  promises,  particularly  on  the  eve  of  a  great  election,  the 
results  of  which  are  to  affect  the  highest  interests  of  the 
country  for  years  to  come."  (Works,  National  Edition,  vol. 
xvi,  p.  260.) 

Krle  had  a  high  ideal  of  the  Presidency.  He  desired 
it  as  an  honor,  he  had  often  said  in  his  impressive 
voice  that  it  was  the  highest  earthly  honor  that  could 
be  attained.  He  probably  desired  it  too  strongly  and 
was  too  ambitious  for  it.  But  with  his  brilliant  past 
and  the  high  position  of  intellectual  independence  to 
which  he  had  raised  himself,  he  could  not  step  down  to 
bid  for  it  in  the  way  the  anti-Masons  desired ;  and  they 
should  have  had  intelligence  enough  not  to  ask  him.  ^ 

Probably  Old  Jackson,  in  a  similar  position,  would 
have  answered  "By  the  Eternal,  Masonry  shall  be 
torn  out  root  and  branch  and  exterminated  from  the 
face  of  the  earth  ;  "  and  if  he  had  added  a  few  character 
istic  oaths  the  hats  would  have  swung  up  with  "  Hurrah 
for  Jackson  " ;  and  nobody  would  have  thought  of  saying 

357 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

that  he  was  making  a  low  bargain  for  the  Presidency. 
Jackson  was  never  held  to  account  for  any  kind  of  trick 
ery;  but  Clay  and  Webster  were  always  held  to  the 
•highest  responsibility. 

In  1835,  when  he  declined  the  anti-Mason  temptation, 
the  Whigs  of  Pennsylvania  split  in  half,  and  wrere  un 
able  to  hold  a  united  convention.  The  anti-Mason  fac 
tion  held  their  convention  first,  and  rejected  Webster 
because  he  had  been,  they  said,  a  Federalist,  and  they 
could  not  "  carry  him  " ;  or,  in  modern  phrase,  he  was 
not  available.  So  W'ebster  was  punished  for  the  sins 
of  his  youth;  for  having  acted  with  the  party  which 
opposed  the  War  of  1812.  If  he  had  been  nominated, 
no  doubt,  there  would  have  been  violent  attacks  upon 
him,  after  the  manner  of  Hayne's  famous  speech,  for 
his  part  in  the  war.  In  the  popular  view  that  was  his 
vulnerable  point.2 

Instead  of  the  great  orator,  the  anti-Masons  nom 
inated  General  William  Henry  Harrison,  who  seemed 
available  and  easy  to  "  carry,"  because  he  was  of  the 
soldier  hero  class  and  his  services  in  the  War  of  1812 
had  been  somewhat  distinguished.  The  regular  Whigs 
of  Pennsylvania  met  in  convention  the  next  day,  and 
in  order  not  to  divide  the  party  still  farther,  accepted 
the  nomination  made  by  the  anti-Masons.  But  the  party 
was  hopelessly  split.  The  southern  Whigs  preferred 
and  voted  for  Hugh  L.  White,  of  Tennessee.  The 
Democrats  in  consequence  had  an  easy  victory,  and 
Martin  Van  Buren  became  President. 

Webster  was  much  provoked  and  mortified,  and  at 
times  depressed,  over  the  loss  of  this  nomination.  It 

2  William  Plumer,  Webster's  old  friend  in  Congress,  said 
of  him,  "  He  is  considered  as  standing  at  the  head  of  the  old 
Federal  party;  and  the  sins  of  the  party  are  visited  on  him. 
There  is  no  great  justice  in  this;  but  there  are  too  many  men, 
in  all  parties,  who  know  how  to  use  this  circumstance  to  his 
prejudice."  (Webster,  Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xvii,  p. 
558;  Curtis,  vol.  i,  p.  511.) 

358 


A  CHANCE  FOR  THE  PRESIDENCY 

was  the  time  when  he  was  the  right  age  and  the  chances 
seemed  good.  He  felt  as  if  he  were  being  deprived 
of  what  he  deserved. 

"  Webster  is  ambitious,"  said  his  old  friend  Plumer ;  "  and 
can  be  satisfied  with  nothing  short  of  the  highest.  He  has 
acquired  all  the  fame  which  mere 'speech-making  can  confer  on 
him ;  but  he  has  no  substantial  power  adequate  to  his  desire  or 
the  acknowledged  force  of  his  mind.  He  has  long  served  under 
men  whom  he  does  not  like  and  whom  he  considers  his  in 
feriors  in  mental  power.  His  attempt  to  form  a  party  of  his 
own,  or  rather  to  put  himself  at  the  head  of  the  opponents 
(Whigs  and  Democrats)  of  General  Jackson,  has  been  unsuc 
cessful  and  he  feels  that  Clay,  though  his  inferior  in  many 
respects,  is  yet  the  acknowledged  leader  of  the  Whig  party." 
(Webster,  Works,  vol.  xvii,  pp.  559,  560.) 

Both  Webster  and  Henry  Clay  seem  to  have  been 
overanxious  for  the  Presidency.  Clay  seems  to  have  been 
worse  in  this  respect  than  Webster,  and  had  his  heart 
most  inordinately  set  upon  it.  Neither  of  them  should 
have  bothered  so  much  about  it.  Their  fame  was  se 
cure  and  possibly  better  secured  without  it.  Certainly, 
in  Webster's  case,  the  author  of  the  reply  to  Hayne  and 
the  reply  to  Calhoun  will  a  thousand  years  hence  still 
be  a  living  force  when  many  of  the  Presidents  will  have 
become  mere  names  on  a  long  list.  Even  if  Webster 
had  been  nominated  and  elected  at  this  time,  there  was 
nothing  remarkable  he  could  have  done;  and  that  elec 
tion  would  have  prevented  him  becoming  Secretary  of 
State  and  negotiating  the  Ashburton  Treaty,  a  very 
remarkable  and  famous  event  for  him. 


359 


XIV 

ATTEMPTS    TO    RETIRE PANIC     OF     1837 SUB-TREASURY 

VISIT  TO  ENGLAND HARD  CIDER  CAMPAIGN 

SECRETARY  OF  STATE 

FOR  a  time  there  are  smoother  waters  in  Webster's 
life.  Most  of  the  greatest  events  of  his  career,  the 
speeches  and  orations  which  made  his  wonderful  reputa 
tion,  are  behind  him.  He  is  still  at  work  in  the  Senate 
and  in  the  Supreme  Court.  We  read  of  his  efforts  in  the 
dispute  with  France  over  the  payment  of  claims  for  the 
American  vessels  and  cargoes  which  were  seized  in  the 
Napoleonic  wars.  The  financial  question  came  up  again. 
The  crude  method  forced  upon  the  country  by  President 
Jackson,  of  depositing  the  government  funds  in  selected 
State  banks,  was  working  badly.  The  banks  not  having 
been  created  for  such  a  service  were  awkward  and 
uncertain  in  handling  the  funds.  The  Mexican  province 
of  Texas  was  winning  her  independence  and  it  was  a 
question  whether  she  should  remain  an  independent, 
slave-holding  nation  or  become  an  American  slave-hold 
ing  State,  and  add  to  the  power  of  the  South.  Senator 
Benton  kept  renewing  his  motion  to  expunge  from  the 
Senate  journal  the  resolution  which  declared  the  re 
moval  by  President  Jackson  of  the  deposits  from  the 
Bank  of  the  United  States  unlawful  and  unconstitu 
tional  ;  and  he  finally  succeeded,  and  black  lines  were 
drawn  round  the  obnoxious  resolution  and  "  expunged  " 
was  written  across  it  just  to  please  Jackson  and  make 
the  old  fellow  happy  as  he  was  leaving  the  Presidency 
and  retiring  to  his  good  brick  house  on  the  plantation 
in  Tennessee. 

In  all  these  things  Webster  had  a  part;  and  his 
words,  as  usual,  were  strong  and  interesting.  Even 
on  the  absurd  subject  of  the  expunging  resolution,  when 

360 


ATTEMPTS  TO  RETIRE 

one  begins  to  read  his  remarks,  the  attention  is  held 
and  the  speech  read  to  the  end  for  the  perfection  of  the 
reasoning  and  language  alone.  But  we  must  pass 
lightly  over  all  this  routine,  as  we  may,  perhaps,  call  it, 
valuable  though  it  was  in  its  day  and  place.  A  new 
subject  had  come  before  Congress,  a  terrible  one,  with 
which  Webster  in  the  end  was  compelled  to  deal  and 
suffer  vast  unpopularity  in  New  England. 

In  his  reply  to  Hayne  he  had  asserted  positively  that 
the  North  had  no  intention  of  interfering  with  slavery 
in  the  South  and  had  not  interfered  with  it.  It  had  not 
interfered  officially;  that  was  true.  The  public  men 
of  the  North  were  as  one  in  the  opinion  that  slavery 
in  the  States  where  it  was  recognized  and  legalized 
by  the  Constitution  should  be  let  alone.  Unfavorable 
comment  and  criticism  on  slavery  had  been  compara 
tively  slight.  Slavery  had,  of  course,  often  been  spoken 
of  as  an  evil ;  but  hardly  more  in  the  North  than  in  the 
South.  Emancipation  societies  were  in  fact  more  nu 
merous  in  the  South  than  in  the  North.  But  now  the 
abolitionist  party  of  New  England  and  the  West,  though 
barely  five  years  old,  was  gathering  most  alarming 
strength;  their  ideas  were  spreading  throughout  the 
North  and  they  announced  in  the  boldest  and  most  open 
manner  that  they  intended  "  the  speedy  and  entire 
abolition  of  slavery."  Their  petitions  were  flooding 
Congress;  and  so  determined  were  the  majorities  in 
both  Houses,  and  indeed  the  majority  of  people  in  the 
North  at  that  time,  that  there  should  be  no  official  inter 
ference  with  slavery,  that  Congress  would  not  even  re 
ceive  the  petitions.  Webster  resisted  this  decision ;  he 
thought  that  the  petitions  should  be  received  and  read. 
To  reject  them  on  sight  was,  he  argued,  a  denial  of  an 
immemorial  Anglo-Saxon  right  and  tended  rather  to 
inflame  the  fanatical  abolitionists  and  give  them  the 
popularity  of  martyrdom. 

That  Webster  felt  that  there  would  be  no  more  great 
opportunities  for  him  in  the  Senate  and  that  he  would 

361 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

have  a  better  chance  for  the  Presidency  by  resigning 
cannot  be  positively  asserted.  But  at  this  particular 
time  he  broke  out  in  a  long-threatened  determination 
to  resign  and  retire  to  private  life  and  farming  on  a 
large  scale.  He  was  almost  fifty-five  years  old.  He 
had  had  a  long  and  most  laborious  political  and  legal 
career  at  Washington.  He  had  argued  in  the  Supreme 
Court  momentous  constitutional  cases  which,  being  de 
cided  his  way,  had  built  up  nationality  and  union.  In 
the  same  court  he  had  appeared  every  winter  in  innumer 
able  suits  involving  the  most  important  commercial 
interests  and  millions  of  dollars.  At  the  same  time  he 
had  more  than  fulfilled  his  duties  in  the  Senate.  The 
mere  animal  energy  required  to  go  through  with  this 
prodigious  double  work  in  both  court  and  Senate  was  in 
itself  a  marvel  and  has  seldom  been  equalled.  He  had 
expounded  in  the  Senate  great  constitutional  principles 
and  raised  them  to  a  clearness  and  popularity  they  had 
never  had  before.  There  were  millions  of  people  in 
the  country  who  were  saying  at  every  opportunity  that 
he  had  done  more  for  sound  principles  of  finance  and 
more  to  establish  nationality  and  union  than  any  man 
since  the  framers  of  the  Constitution. 

Having  gone  through  with  such  a  task  for  so  many 
years  and  lived  what  to  him  was  a  detestable  life  in 
lodgings  at  the  capital,  having  for  so  long  thrown  away, 
as  it  seemed  to  him,  great  opportunities  of  professional 
advancement  and  increase  of  fortune,  he  felt  that  he 
had  earned  either  retirement  or  a  change  of  occupation. 
He  never  had  had  leisure  to  visit  England  or  travel  in 
Europe,  although  he  had  been  planning  for  that  enjoy 
ment  for  twenty  years.  No  doubt  as  he  grew  older  the 
strain  of  the  sedentary  life  told  more  and  more  unpleas 
antly  upon  his  health.  The  drinking  habits  of  the  Sen 
ate  were  bad;  the  pocket  pistol,  as  the  whiskey  flask 
was  called,  was  always  in  evidence ;  there  were  feasts 
in  committee  rooms,  and  Webster,  like  others,  is  gener 
ally  believed  to  have  seriously  injured  his  iron  consti- 

362 


ATTEMPTS  TO  RETIRE 

tution.  The  irritability  which  characterized  his  later 
years  may  have  begun  at  this  time.  No  doubt  he  also 
felt  that  he  was  entitled  to  a  suitable  nomination  for  the 
Presidency,  and  had  been  rather  unfairly  denied  it. 

The  red  gods  again  called  loudly  to  him.  He  could 
think  of  nothing  but  Marshfield,  the  ocean,  the  great 
fields,  the  cattle,  the  crops,  the  loads  of  kelp,  his  friends 
the  Thomases,  who  sympathized  with  his  tastes,  and  the 
boatmen  who  took  him  fishing  and  gave  him  long  days 
of  health  and  glorious  nights  of  sleep.  From  these  his 
powerful  energies  branched  out,  leaving  the  dry  law 
and  the  Constitution,  and  the  "  din  of  politics,"  as  he 
called  it,  and  set  him  dreaming  about  the  vast  prairies 
of  the  West.  Everyone  was  listening  to  tales  of  their 
wonderful  fertility  and  the  romance  and  freedom  of  the 
life.  He  himself  had  grown  eloquent  about  them  in  the 
Senate.  So  he  was  planning  a  great  farm  in  Illinois,  a 
thousand  acres  at  least,  partly  as  a  land  speculation, 
partly  as  a  pleasure,  and  wondering  whether  he  would 
love  it  as  much  as  he  loved  Marshfield. 

He  had  for  some  time  been  buying  western  land  and 
interests.  He  had  had  his  son  Fletcher  out  there  buy 
ing  for  him  in  several  States  and  had  also  been  buying 
through  agreements  with  persons  in  that  region.  In 
company  with  members  of  Congress  he  bought  an  in 
terest  in  Winnebago  City.  This  he  admitted  was 
"  fancy  stock."  From  a  letter  only  recently  printed  we 
learn  that  in  March,  1838,  he  owned  lands  in  Ohio, 
Indiana,  Illinois,  Michigan  and  Wisconsin  which  he 
wished  to  sell  and  had  sent  Ray  Thomas  out  there  at  a 
salary  of  $2000  a  year  and  expenses  to  sell  them  for 
him  and  look  after  his  interests.  His  large  farm  near 
La  Salle,  Illinois,  he  intended  to  keep,  and  his  son 
Fletcher  was  already  living  on  it.  He  had,  no  doubt, 
been  led  into  these  purchases  and  expenses  by  the 
excitement  and  wild  talk  about  such  things  in  Wash 
ington.  They  seem  to  have  been  pretty  much  all  fail 
ures;  and  they  enable  us  to  see  how  all  the  money  he 

363 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

could  make  was  dissipated  and  why  his  debts 
accumulated.1 

We  have  a  letter  he  wrote  about  this  time  to  the  son 
of  Captain  Thomas,  Charles  H.  Thomas,  who,  now  that 
the  captain  had  grown  old,  seems  to  have  been  the 
manager  at  Marshfield.  Webster's  letters  were  usually 
short,  even  those  on  very  important  political  subjects, 
but  this  letter  about  things  to  be  done  at  Marshfield 
was  a  very  long  one,  possibly  the  longest  he  ever  wrote, 
full  of  directions  and  inquiries  about  liming,  hauling 
kelp  from  the  seashore,  fattening  the  old  oxen,  giving 
pleasing  names  to  the  outlying  farms  he  had  bought  in, 
and  all  manner  of  anticipation  of  the  pleasures  he 
would  have  as  soon  as  he  could  break  away  from  the 
Senate  and  the  Supreme  Court  and  break  loose  at 
Marshfield.  The  keen,  shrewd  brevity  of  his  letters 
on  politics  and  business  display  his  intellect,  but  this 
Marshfield  letter,  with  its  exuberance  of  details,  its  in 
difference  as  to  time  or  number  of  words,  shows  where 
his  heart  was. 

Shortly  before  this  letter  was  written  his  desire  to 
retire  from  public  life  could  no  longer  be  restrained, 
and  he  sent  to  the  Massachusetts  Legislature  his  resig 
nation  from  the  Senate.  His  great  farm  near  La  Salle, 
Illinois,  was  to  be  stocked  and  developed  in  the  most 
approved  way  for  great  profit  and  great  pleasure  and 
called  Salisbury,  after  his  native  town  in  New  Hamp 
shire.  He,  himself,  must  go  out  there,  travel  about 
to  see  more  of  his  own  country,  and  then  gratify  the 
desire  of  his  whole  life  by  a  visit  to  England.  He 
might,  at  some  future  time,  perhaps,  return  to  the 
Senate ;  but  for  awhile,  he  thought,  he  ought  to  devote 
himself  to  his  private  interests  which  had  been  sacrificed 
for  so  many  years. 

He  found,  however,  that  his  friends,  followers  and 
admirers  were  determined  to  put  him  in  a  position  in 


1  Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xvi,  pp.  279,  280,  295,  296. 
364 


ATTEMPTS  TO  RETIRE 

which  resignation  would  be  practically  impossible.  A 
committee  of  the  Whigs  of  the  Massachusetts  Legisla 
ture,  with  the  Speaker,  Robert  C.  Winthrop,  at  their 
head,  requested  him  to  withdraw  his  resignation,  or,  at 
least,  postpone  it  for  a  year.  Private  letters  to  the 
same  effect  poured  in  upon  him.  In  New  York  a  meet 
ing  of  Whigs,  at  which  Chancellor  Kent  presided, 
arranged  for  a  very  magnificent  public  dinner  which 
was  intended  either  to  stop  his  resignation  or  celebrate 
his  retirement  in  a  most  imposing  form.  The  truth 
was,  that  in  the  confused  state  of  the  public  finances 
as  the  result  of  Jackson's  reign,  and  the  uncertainty 
of  the  stability  of  the  Union  under  the  nullification  and 
anti-slavery  excitements,  nearly  all  the  mercantile,  bank 
ing  and  manufacturing  classes,  as  well  as  lovers  of  the 
Union,  relied  upon  Webster's  assistance  as  indispen 
sable  and  sincerely  regarded  his  resignation  as  a 
calamity. 

Never  before  or  since,  in  the  history  of  the  country,/ 
has  such  popular  pressure  been  brought  to  bear  upon! 
a  Senator  to  prevent  his  retirement.     They  seemed  to\ 
care  little  about  his  aspirations  for  the  Presidency,  but  \ 
everything  for  having  him  do  their  work  in  the  field 
where  he  had  proved  his  fitness,  the  Senate.     He  found 
himself  utterly  unable  to  resist.     The  resignation  was 
withdrawn,  and  at  the  New  York  meeting  he  made  a 
speech  usually  known  as  the  speech  at  Niblo's  Garden 
or  Niblo's  Saloon ;  and  a  good  deal  praised.     A  modern 
reading  of  it,  however,  seems  to  rank  it  among  his  minor 
efforts.     He  gave  a  good  review  of  the  Jacksonian  ad 
ministrations  and  his  own  conduct  and  opinions.     He 
went  back  into  the  past,  and  forecasted  the  future,  warn 
ing  against  the   annexation   of  Texas,   foretelling  the 
coming  power  of  the  Abolitionists  and  the  increasing 
danger  to  the  Union  of  the  slavery  question. 

rItt-MayUqejTiade  a  tour  to  Ohio,  Kentucky  and 
Illinois;  and  the  account  of  it  is  a  most  extraordinary 
record  of  public  dinners,  barbecues,  speeches  to  immense 

365 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

crowds  and  people  flocking  to  see  him,  as  one  of  the 
curiosities  and  wonders  of  the  world.  He  met  them  in 
an  intimate  social  way  and  they  were  charmed  by  his 
genial  manner  and  hearty  enjoyment  of  the  simple 
pleasures  of  western  life.  Evidently  he  was  a  revela 
tion  to  them  of  personal  dignity,  intellectual  power, 
manly  bearing  and  social  ease  which  enlarged  their  faith 
and  wonder  in  the  capacity  of  human  nature.  There 
are  several  instances  in  his  life  of  this  popularity,  an 
amazing  popularity  among  all  sorts  and  conditions  of 
men,  greater  than  anything  we  have  seen  in  our  time. 
And  yet  in  many  ways  it  was  not  equal  to  the  popularity 
of  Jackson.  Webster  could  not  be  elected  to  the  Presi 
dency  and  had  not  even  hold  enough  to  secure  a  favor 
able  and  whole-souled  nomination  from  any  party. 

Possibly  his  popularity  may  have  been  made  up 
from  a  class  different  from  that  of  Jackson,  or  made  up 
largely  of  mere  curiosity  and  wronder  at  the  unusual 
spectacle  of  such  talents,  genius,  intellect  and  personal 
appearance  united  in  one  man ;  or,  perhaps,  he  needed 
just  that  one  slight  touch  of  military  experience  which 
always  inflames  the  American  heart.  If  he  had  been 
in  just  one  small  battle,  exhibited  some  one  act  of 
violence,  ordered  a  couple  of  Spaniards  or  Englishmen 
shot,  he  might  have  been  nominated  by  acclamation  of 
all  parties. 

While  he  was  away  on  this  western  tour,  the  famous 
financial j>Amc_ of  1837  began.  It  was  the  most  serious 
and  devastating  of  afl^'ftte  rapidly  succeeding  panics 
which  had  resulted  from  Jackson's  passionate  manipula 
tion  of  the  Treasury  and  the  banks.  It  was  precipitated 
by  the  Jackson  Specie  Circular,  as  it  was  called,  which 
was  an  order  from  the  Treasury,  without  any  authority 
from  Congress  or  from  laws,  directing  the  government 
agents  to  accept  only  gold  and  silver  in  payment  for 
sales  of  public  lands.  It  was  part  of  the  Jackson  party's 
plan  to  bring  about  a  currency  composed  of  only  gold 
and  silver  and  abolish  bank  notes  and  paper  money 

366 


PANIC  OF  1837 

altogether.  This  effort  on  their  part,  Webster  charged, 
arose  from  the  fear  that  their  unfortunate  meddling 
with  the^  deposits  and  the  banks  would  soon  precipitate 
an  inordinate  and  disastrous  issue  of  irredeemable  paper 
money  which  might,  perhaps,  be  prevented  if  they 
rushed  everything  at  once  to  specie  and  made  the  whole 
currency  specie.  The  effect  of  the  Specie  Circular  was 
to  render  worthless  the  notes  of  the  wild-cat  banks  of  the 
West,  and  by  confining  the  government  to  specie,  to 
diminish  the  general  circulation  of  the  money  of  the 
country.  The  diminished  circulation  checked  business, 
lowered  prices,  overwhelmed  debtors,  discouraged  enter 
prise,  and  soon  it  was  found  that  no  bank,  wild  or  tame, 
could  pay  its  debts  or  borrow  money. 

It  was  the  final  experiment,  the  last  spasm  of  the 
thoroughly  rotten  and  absurd  Jacksonian  financial  sys 
tem,  and  may  have  been  valuable  for  the  purpose  of 
clearing  the  whole  thing  away  and  giving  an  oppor 
tunity  for  sounder  methods.  Men's  eyes  were  begin 
ning  to  open  and  see  that  it  had  all  been  wrong,  not  only 
Jackson's  schemes,  the  removal  of  the  deposits,  the 
establishment  of  pet  banks  for  the  government  funds, 
but  the  United  States  Bank  itself,  although  it  had 
been  valuable  and  worked  well  for  forty  years. 

President  Van  Buren,  who  succeeded  Jackson,  dealt 
with  the  situation  both  wisely  and  well.  He  called  a 
special  session  of  Congress,  which  compelled  Webster  to 
cut  short  his  western  tour  before  the  crowds  that  came 
to  stare  at  him  were  half  satisfied.  In  compliance  with 
the  President's  wishes  Congress  authorized  the  Treasury 
to  issue  its  own  notes  to  the  amount  of  $10,000,000,  a 
plan  resembling  in  principle  the  method  adopted  during 
the  Civil  War.  Webster  opposed  this  issue,  because 
the  notes,  being  without  interest  and  with  no  fixed  period 
for  redemption,  were  mere  paper  money.  We  can  sym 
pathize  with  his  thoroughgoing,  hard  money  principles  ; 
but  in  this  instance  he  was  going  too  far.  This  paper 
money  issue  was  valuable  as  a  temporary  expedient; 

367 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

because  the  government,  though  lately  so  rich  that  it  had 
divided  part  of  its  surplus  among  the  States,  had  now 
not  sufficient  money  to  pay  its  creditors.  Its  revenues 
were  in  the  Jackson  State  banks,  and  those  banks  could 
pay  nothing. 

For  a  permanent  plan  for  managing  the  public 
finances  the  Whigs  were  stupid  enough  to  propose  the 
chartering  of  another  United  States  Bank.  But  Presi 
dent  Van  Buren,  in  his  message  to  Congress,  was 
forced  by  the  circumstances  to  take  a  very  fortunate 
view  of  the  situation.  He  felt  that  he  must  wipe  out 
the  whole  Jacksonian  muddle,  and  therefore  he  suggested 
that  the  government  cut  loose  altogether  from  banks  of 
every  kind,  that  it  make  no  attempt  to  regulate  the 
currency  in  any  of  the  old  methods,  and  that  its  revenues 
should  be  held  in  the  hands  of  its  collecting  officers 
under  bond,  in  various  parts  of  the  country,  to  be  paid 
out  by  them  to  public  creditors  on  Treasury  orders. 
This,  with  subsequent  modifications,  became  the  sub- 
treasury  plan  under  which  we  have  prospered  so  well 
for  several  generations;  so  well,  indeed,  that  we  are 
unconscious  of  it;  and  most  of  us  are  unaware  that 
there  is  a  sub-treasury. 

But   when   proposed   in   the   Congress   of    1837,   it 
could  not  be  carried.     Webster  opposed  it  in  a  powerful 
speech,  going  over  again  in  a  most  interesting  manner 
all  the  facts  and  reasons  which  showed  how  valuable 
the   United    States    Bank   had   been    in   the   past.     As 
presented  at  that  time  the  sub-treasury  plan  was  coupled 
with  the  assertion  of  the  Democratic  principle  that  the 
. !  government  had  no  power  to   regulate  the  currency, 
lit  was  this  doctrine  that  Webster  particularly  attacked, 
\and   he   showed   in   his  luminous  and  instructive   way 
Njthat  the  power  given  by  the  Constitution  to  regulate 
coinage  and  regulate  commerce,  coupled  with  the  pro 
hibition  against  the  States  issuing  their  own  paper  for 
circulation,  necessarily  gave  the  power  to  create  a  stable 
currency  and  regulate  it. 

368 


SUB-TREASURY 

The  sub-treasury  plan  was  not  adopted  until  1840. 
It  was  repealed  by  the  Whigs  in  1841,  and  finally  estab 
lished  by  the  Democrats  in  1846.  Webster  would,  no 
doubt,  now  admit  its  usefulness;  but  in  his  time  it 
seems  to  have  impressed  him  as  a  crude  absurdity,  a 
withdrawal  of  the  government  funds  from  useful  circu 
lation  and  a  locking  of  them  up  in  vaults  and  cellars 
very  much  as  old  country  people  are  supposed  to  keep 
their  savings  hid  away  behind  the  chimney  or  under  the 
barn.  It  was  too  simple;  he  had  been  too  long  accus 
tomed  to  complications  and  elaborateness  to  grasp  such 
an  astoundingly  easy  solution. 

His  numerous  and  often  lengthy  arguments  against 
the  sub-treasury  are,  however,  extremely  valuable  and 
instructive  reading,  both  historically  as  well  as  for  their 
enlightening  exposition  of  many  of  the  eternal  verities 
of  finance.     It  must  be  remembered  that  the  sub-treasury 
plan  was  not  presented  to  him  in  the  simple  form  it 
assumes  when   we   now   watch   its   workings.     It   was 
presented  mixed  up  with  and  supported  by  wild  absurdi 
ties,  or  principles,  so-called,  of  the  Jackson  party.     That 
party  was  railing  against  banks  and  credit,   storming 
against   imaginary   aristocracies,   exciting  the  poor  to 
make   war  upon   the   rich,   telling   the   laborer,    whose 
wages  were  higher  than  anywhere  else  in  the  world, 
that  he  was  a  shackled  slave,  and  assailing  the  long- 
established  methods  of  finance  as  oppressions.     They 
were  supporting  the  sub-treasury  as  a  plan  "  to  rid  the 
country  of  all  banks  as  being  but  so  many  nuisances 
and   to   abolish   all   paper   currency   whatever."     They 
managed  to  connect  this  advocacy  of  the  sub-treasury 
with    their   defence   of   the    Specie    Circular.     Having 
found  that  the  circular  had  diminished  circulation  and 
thus  brought  on  the  panic,  they  attempted  to  show  that 
there  was  too  much  money  circulating  at  that  time,  and 
therefore  the  circular  must  have  been  a  good  thing,  in 
spite  of  the  panic.     A  large  part  of  one  of  Webster's 
speeches    against   the    sub-treasury    was    taken   up   in 
24  369 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

proving  that  there  was  not,  at  that  time,  an  excess  of 
currency;  and  his  method  of  showing  this  was  of  edu 
cational  value  to  everybody. 

In  fact,  in  the  whole  series  of  these  financial  speeches 
against  the  Jacksonian  fanaticism,  extending  over  a  num 
ber  of  years,  Webster  occupied  a  very  high  educational 
position,  which  endeared  him  to  the  hearts  and  minds  of 
the  conservative  and  well-educated  elements  of  the  coun 
try,  the  bankers,  the  capitalists,  the  merchants  and  the 
trading  and  shipping  interest ;  wicked,  dangerous  people 
all  of  them,  said  the  Democrats.  These  capitalist  classes 
felt  so  grateful  to  Webster  that  they  willingly  supplied 
large  sums  of  money  to  pay  his  debts  and  keep  him  in 
Congress.  They  became  his  people,  his  constituency 
scattered  over  the  whole  country,  his  clients,  some  have 
insisted  on  calling  them,  and  he  became  their  represen 
tative,  "  the  merchant's  pet "  who  roused  both  their 
admiration  and  their  confidence  whenever  he  explained 
the  functions  of  banks,  money  and  finance. 

He  must  have  given  exhaustive  study  to  these  sub 
jects  ;  for  his  exposition  of  them  is  as  valuable  to-day  as 
it  was  eighty  years  ago,  and  is  delightful  reading  be 
sides.  One  of  his  criticisms  of  the  sub-treasury  plan  is 
still  a  sound  one.  He  deplored  its  tendency  to  hoard  the 
government  money,  lock  it  up  in  vaults,  instead  of  put 
ting  it  in  free  circulation  among  the  people,  as  the 
United  States  Bank  had  done.  This  inconvenience  in 
times  of  money  stringency  has  been  often  felt;  but,  of 
course,  does  not  outweigh  the  great  general  advantage 
of  the  sub-treasury. 

The  exact  origin  of  the  sub-treasury  plan  seems  to 
be  unknown,  except  that  we  find  it  first  suggested  in 
Congress  in  1834  by  W.  F.  Gordon,  of  Virginia.2  Van 
Buren  made  no  claims  as  its  originator.  It  was,  how 
ever,  an  obvious  method  ;  for  if,  as  an  individual  or  a 

2  Von  Holt,  Constitutional  History  of  the  U.  S.,  vol.  ii, 
p.  202. 

370 


SUB-TREASURY 

government,  you  cannot  trust  banks  to  keep  your  money, 
the  natural  remedy  is  to  build  vaults  or  hiding  places  of 
your  own  for  it.  The  Democrats,  having  destroyed  the 
United  States  Bank  and  then  having  tried  the  experi 
ment  of  pet  State  banks  and  the  experiment  of  abolish 
ing  bank  notes,  all  with  ruinous  results,  were  simply 
driven  to  the  sub-treasury  plan  as  a  last,  and,  as  it 
turned  out,  very  lucky  resort. 

One  of  the  discussions  of  the  sub-treasury  came  near 
branching  out  into  a  debate  on  nullification,  disunion 
and  all  sorts  of  subjects  like  the  Great  Debate  of  1830. 
Calhoun  was  advocating  the  sub-treasury,  but  not  alto 
gether  on  the  merits  we  now  see  in  it.  The  sworn 
enemy  of  Jackson,  he  had  now,  however,  gone  over  to 
the  support  of  Jackson's  pupil,  Van  Buren.  He  had 
changed  all  the  opinions  of  his  youth  and  middle  age ; 
from  having  been  an  advocate  of  protection,  union, 
internal  improvements  and  of  the  United  States  Bank, 
he  was  now  the  enemy  of  all  of  them,  and  was  rail 
ing  against  the  long-established  methods  of  finance, 
denouncing  everything  settled  and  conservative,  and 
seemed  to  think  that  the  sub-treasury  would,  in  some 
way,  help  nullification  and  slavery.  That  he  aroused 
Webster's  high  indignation  was  natural,  and  the  two 
old  friends  were  soon  pitted  against  each  other  in  a 
controversy  which  has  given  us  some  of  the  most  fre 
quently  quoted  passages  of  Websterian  eloquence.  It 
was  in  this  debate  that,  speaking  again  for  union  and 
against  Calhoun's  boast  that  he  was  marching  under 
the  "  Banner  of  State  Rights,"  Webster  said : 

"  I  came  into  public  life,  sir,  in  the  service  of  the  United 
States.  On  that  broad  altar  my  earliest  and  all  my  public 
vows  have  been  made.  I  propose  to  serve  no  other  master.  So 
far  as  depends  on  any  agency  of  mine,  they  shall  continue 
United  States;  united  in  interest  and  in  affection;  united  in 
everything  in  regard  to  which  the  Constitution  has  decreed 
their  union;  united  in  war  for  the  common  defence,  the  com 
mon  renown  and  the  common  glory ;  and  united,  compacted, 
knit  firmly  together  in  peace,  for  the  common  prosperity  and 

371 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

happiness    of    ourselves    and    our    children."      (Works,    1851 
Edition,  vol.  iv,  p.  499.) 

Some  of  the  best  instances  of  that  oratorical  humor, 
so  classic  and  perfect  of  its  kind,  are  to  be  found  in  this 
debate.  The  picture  he  drew  of  old  Jackson,  frowning 
and  terrible,  suddenly  walking  into  the  Senate  and  find 
ing  that  the  Democrats  had  accepted  as  their  leader 
and  defender  of  his  policies  his  detested  enemy,  Cal- 
houn,  was  a  great  hit  in  its  day. 

"On  the  broad  surface  of  the  country,  sir,  there  is  a  spot 
called  the  '  Hermitage.'  In  that  residence  is  an  occupant 
very  well  known  and  not  a  little  remarkable  in  person  and 
character.  Suppose,  sir,  the  occupant  of  the  Hermitage  were 
now  to  open  that  door,  enter  the  Senate,  walk  forward,  and 
look  over  the  chamber  to  the  seats  on  the  other  side.  Be  not 
frightened,  gentlemen;  it  is  but  fancy's  sketch.  Suppose  he 
should  thus  come  in  among  us,  sir,  and  see  into  whose  hands 
has  fallen  the  chief  support  of  that  administration  which  was, 
in  so  great  a  degree,  appointed  by  himself,  and  which  he  fondly 
relied  on  to  maintain  the  principles  of  his  own.  If  gentlemen 
were  now  to  see  his  steady  military  step,  his  erect  posture,  his 
compressed  lips,  his  firmly  knitted  brow,  and  his  eyes  full  of 
fire,  I  cannot  help  thinking,  sir,  they  would  all  feel  somewhat 
queer.  There  would  be,  I  imagine,  not  a  little  awkward  moving 
and  shuffling  in  their  seats.  They  would  expect  soon  to  hear 
the  roar  of  the  lion,  even  if  they  did  not  feel  his  paw." 

Calhoun  assailed  Webster's  opinions,  conduct  and 
consistency,  comparing  them  with  the  immaculateness 
of  his  own ;  and  the  opening  passage  of  Webster's  reply 
is  another  famous  instance  of  that  mellow  humor. 

"Mr.  President,— I  came  rather  late  to  the  Senate  this 
morning,  and  happening  to  meet  a  friend  on  the  avenue,  I  was 
admonished  to  hasten  my  steps,  as  '  the  war  was  to  be  carried 
into  Africa,'  and  I  was  expected  to  be  annihilated.  I  lost  no 
time  in  following  the  advice,  sir,  since  it  would  be  awkward 
for  one  to  be  annihilated  without  knowing  anything  about  it. 

"  Well,  sir,  the  war  has  been  carried  into  Africa.  The 
honorable  member  has  made  an  expedition  into  regions  as 
remote  from  the  subject  of  the  debate  as  the  orb  of  Jupiter 
from  that  of  the  earth.  He  has  spoken  of  the  tariff,  of  slavery, 
and  of  the  late  war.  Of  all  this  I  do  not  complain.  On  the 

372 


SUB-TREASURY 

contrary,  if  it  be  his  pleasure  to  allude  to  all  or  any  of  these 
topics,  for  any  purpose  whatever,  I  am  ready  at  all  times  to 
hear  him. 

"  Sir,  this  carrying  the  war  into  Africa,  which  has  become 
so  common  a  phrase  among  us,  is,  indeed,  imitating  a  great 
example;  but  it  is  an  example  which  is  not  always  followed 
with  success.  In  the  first  place,  every  man,  though  he  be  a 
man  of  talent  or  genius,  is  not  a  Scipio;  and  in  the  next  place, 
as  I  recollect  this  part  of  Roman  and  Carthaginian  history,— 
the  gentleman  may  be  more  accurate,  but  as  I  recollect  it, 
when  Scipio  resolved  upon  carrying  the  war  into  Africa,  Han 
nibal  was  not  at  home.  Now,  sir,  I  am  very  little  like  Han 
nibal,  but  I  am  at  home,  and  when  Scipio  Africanus  South- 
Caroliniensis  brings  the  war  into  my  territories,  I  shall  not 
leave  their  defence  to  Asdrubal,  nor  Syphax,  nor  anybody  else. 
I  meet  him  on  the  shore,  at  his  landing,  and  propose  but  one 
contest." 

Calhoun  resorted  to  the  device  of  intimating  that  he 
had  something  seriously  unfavorable  to  say  of  Web 
ster's  conduct  in  the  War  of  1812,  as  compared  with  his 
own,  but  time  would  not  allow  him  to  go  into  it.  This 
way  of  leaving  an  unfavorable  impression  against  a  man 
without  incurring  the  responsibility  of  making  definite 
charges  was  a  small  trick  for  the  Carolina  cavalier  to 
play.  But  Calhoun  was  a  sadly  changed  man  ;  in  chang 
ing  his  politics  to  support  nullification  and  slavery,  his 
methods  also  had  suffered  a  change.  The  trick  was  a 
useless  and  even  dangerous  one  to  use  against  Web 
ster.  ^  It  gave  him  the  broadest  kind  of  opportunity  to 
use  his  powers  of  sarcasm.  He  called  upon  Calhoun  for 
definite  charges ;  and  as  there  was  no  response  he  went 
into  the  whole  history  of  his  own  and  Calhoun's  conduct 
during  the  war,  the  days  of  their  early  friendship,  when 
they  had  voted  the  same  way  on  every  public  question, 
internal  improvements,  Bank,  war  measures  and  all,  and 
Calhoun  had  been  a  union  man  endeavoring,  as  he  said, 
to  "bind  the  republic  together  with  a  perfect  system 
of  roads  and  Canals."  It  was  a  tactical  blunder  for 
Calhoun  to  raise  the  question;  for  it  gave  Webster  a 
reason  for  showing  by  record  proof  Calhoun's  complete 

373 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

summerset  in  opinion,  and  the  flimsiness  of  his  excuses 
to  cover  it  up  and  give  the  appearance  of  no  change. 

It  was  a  beautiful  speech  on  Webster's  part ;  in  fact, 
there  was  more  than  one  in  this  debate  with  Calhoun; 
all  of  them  full  of  tenderness  for  his  old  friend ;  genial, 
and  almost  jovial,  references  to  the  old  days  of  inti 
macy  ;  high  compliments  to  his  ability  and  former  useful 
ness,  "  the  generous  character,  the  liberal  and  compre 
hensive  mind  "  of  the  youthful  Carolinian,  when  he 
first  appeared  in  Congress,  overflowing  with  great  ob 
jects  and  high  ideals.  For  perfection  in  English  and 
beautiful  simplicity  and  effectiveness,  these  speeches 
would  find  few  equals  even  among  Webster's  best. 
Francis  Lieber,  who  listened  to  some  of  them,  said 
that  such  an  opportunity  for  sarcasm  had  never  before 
been  offered  to  such  a  master  of  it.3 

Webster,  as  already  observed,  had  always  had  a 
fancy  for  being  sent  as  Minister  to  England.  Although 
his  services  in  political  life  were  long  and  so  undoubt 
edly  valuable  to  both  his  party  and  the  country  that  his 
wishes  in  any  matter  of  this  sort  were  entitled  to 
much  consideration,  yet  he  never  was  able  to  attain  the 
only  two  offices  for  which  he  had  any  ambition,  the 
Presidency  and  the  mission  to  England. 

In  the  spring  of  1838  there  seemed  as  if  there  might 
be  an  opportunity  for  him  to  go  to  England.  The 
boundary  between  Maine  and  Canada  had  long  been  a 
subject  of  dispute,  and  it  was  now  becoming  a  serious 
and  unpleasant  one.  Inferior  men,  unable  to  grasp  the 
situation,  had  prevented  a  settlement  by  increasing  the 
irritation.  It  was  now  suggested  that  a  special  minister 
be  sent  to  England  for  the  sole  purpose  of  negotiating 
a  settlement  of  the  boundary ;  and  at  least  one  member 
of  President  Van  Buren's  cabinet  was  in  favor  of  send 
ing  Webster.  The  President  himself  rather  doubted 
if  the  Massachusetts  orator  would  be  sufficiently  pacific 

•Life  and  Letters,  p.  129. 

374 


VISIT  TO  ENGLAND 

in  his  methods.  But  Webster,  who  felt  that  he  under 
stood  the  question,  was  quite  ready  to  go,  and  gave 
to  Mr.  Poinsett,  the  member  favorable  to  him  in  the 
cabinet,  a  memorandum  of  his  views. 

However,  the  President  made  no  appointment,  which 
was  probably  just  as  well.  Webster  would  very  likely 
have  gotten  himself  in  difficulties  by  going  in  the  service 
of  an  administration  with  which  he  was  not  politically 
connected,  and  as  things  turned  out,  he  went  about  the 
business  in  a  much  better  way  by  going  as  a  private 
individual  to  accomplish  one  great  object  of  his  life, 
a  sight-seeing  visit  to  England. 

He  sailed  in  May  of  that  year,  1839,  apparently  on 
one  of  the  steamers  which  had  only  recently  begun  to 
carry  passengers  across  the  Atlantic;  for  he  describes 
the  voyage  as  made  from  New  York  to  Liverpool  in  a 
little  over  fourteen  days  through  a  calm  sea.  It  was 
so  calm,  he  says,  that  his  favorite  fisherman,  Peterson,  at 
Marshfield,  "  could  have  rowed  me  over  in  my  boat." 
There  were  some  eighty  passengers  on  board,  rather 
crowded,  he  said,  and  he  amused  himself  learning  from 
the  first  mate  to  take  latitude  and  longitude.  He  was 
always  very  fond  of  astronomy.4 

From  one  or  two  remarks  in  his  letters  he  seems  to 
have  thought  that  he  could  "  do  something  useful  to 
himself  in  England ;  "  and  in  another  letter  he  writes, 
"  I  have  such  letters  from  England  as  induce  me  to 
think  it  would  be  greatly  for  my  interest  to  make  the 
trip."  Exactly  what  he  referred  to  is  not  clear.  He 
may  have  meant  that  he  could  make  such  acquaintances 
there  and  show  himself  acceptable  to  that  nation  in  such 
a  way  as  would  lead  to  his  employment  in  negotiating 
a  settlement  of  the  boundary  dispute.  He  felt  that  he 
could  settle  that  dispute  and  win  great  distinction  in  it. 
But  he  also  may  have  meant  that  he  would  be  able  to 
sell  to  capitalists  in  England  his  large  holdings,  some 

4  Correspondence,  vol.  ii,  p.  47- 
375 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

20,000  acres,  of  western  lands.  He  was  deeply  in 
debt;  these  western  speculations  could  not  be  readily 
turned  into  cash  in  America;  and  he  says  in  a  letter 
that  if  he  goes  to  England  he  must  make  the  sale  of 
these  lands  the  leading  object  of  his  voyage.5 

His  family  were  with  him — his  wife,  his  daughter 
Julia,  engaged  to  be  married  to  Mr.  Samuel  Appleton, 
Mrs.  Paige  and  his  son  Edward.  It  was  a  grand  outing. 
They  landed  in  Liverpool,  visited  quaint  old  Chester,  as 
our  tourists  still  do,  and  then  went  down  to  London, 
wondering  at  the  agricultural  beauty  and  richness,  and 
the  tasteful  garden-like  appearance  of  the  country. 

"  Even  the  wheat  sowing  and  potato  planting  are  all  done 
so  nicely,  the  ground  looks  as  if  it  had  been  stamped  as  people 
stamp  butter.  And  then  there  are  the  deep  green  fields,  and 
the  beautiful  hedges.  Of  cattle,  in  driving  over  so  great  a 
part  of  this  little  Kingdom,  I  saw  many  varieties  and  of  dif 
ferent  qualities.  All  around  Liverpool  the  Ayrshire  breeds 
abound,  and  they  far  surpass  anything  else  I  have  seen.  In 
hundreds  of  flocks  every  one  looks  as  if  William  Sherburne 
had  been  feeding  and  carding  it  for  six  months."  (Works, 
National  Edition,  vol.  xvi,  p.  308.) 

But  they  could  not  remain  long  unknown.  Soon  they 
were  established  in  London  in  the  midst  of  the  season, 
and  flooded  with  invitations  to  meet  notables,  poets, 
statesmen,  and  among  them  Boz,  as  Charles  Dickens 
was  called  in  those  days.  He  looked,  Webster  said,  "  as 
if  he  were  twenty-five  or  twenty-six  years  old,  is  some 
what  older,  rather  small,  light  complexion,  and  a  good 
deal  of  hair,  shows  none  of  his  peculiar  humor  in  con 
versation  and  is  rather  shy  and  retiring/' 

Webster  investigated  the  methods  of  Parliament  and 
watched  the  barristers  at  the  inns  of  court  arguing  cases. 
Of  the  barristers  he  said : 

"  They  are  vastly  better  trained  than  we  are.  They  speak 
slowly.  They  get  up,  begin  immediately,  and  leave  off  when 

6  Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xvi,  pp.  306,  307;  Van 
Tyne,  Letters  of  Webster,  p.  724. 

376 


VISIT  TO  ENGLAND 

they  have  done.  Their  manner  is  more  like  that  of  a  school 
boy,  who  gets  up  to  say  his  lesson,  goes  right  through  it  and 
then  sits  down,  than  it  is  like  our  more  leisurely  and  elaborate 
habit.  I  think  Sergeant  Wilde,  who  is  esteemed  a  Ions 
speaker  argued  an  insurance  question  in  fifteen  minutes  that 
most  of  us  would  have  got  an  hour's  speech  out  of."  (Works 
National  Edition,  vol.  xvi,  p.  309.) 

Sir  Robert  Peel  seems  to  have  made  a  great  impres 
sion  on  him ;  and  in  after  years  he  used  to  say,  "  Sir 
Robert  Peel  is  head  and  shoulders  above  any  man  I 
ever  saw  in  my  life."6  One  of  his  best  letters  sent 
home  was  to  young  Charles  Thomas,  who  was  managing 
Marshfield ;  and  to  whom  he  describes  his  meeting  Syd 
ney  Smith,  Wordsworth,  Rogers  and  Moore,  and  the 
fashionable  breakfasts  of  the  day. 

"An  English  breakfast  is  the  plainest  and  most  informal 
thing  in  the  world.  Indeed  in  England  the  rule  of  politeness 
is  to  be  quiet,  act  naturally,  take  no  airs  and  make  no  bustle. 
...  1ms  perfect  politeness  has,  of  course,  cost  a  good  deal 
?f  ?"?'  ,,Fuss  and  Bathers  can  be  subdued  only  by  strict 
discipline.  (Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xvi,  p.  308.) 

Of  the  debates  in  Parliament  he  said : 

"I  have  attended  the  debates  a  good  deal,  especially  on 
important  occasions.  Some  of  their  ablest  men  are  far  from 
being  fluent  speakers  In  fact,  they  hold  in  no  high  repute  the 
mere^facu  ty  of  ready  speaking,  at  least  not  so  high  as  it  is 
held  m  other  places.  They  are  universally  men  of  business; 
they  have  not  six  and  twenty  other  legislative  bodies  to  take 
part  of  the  law  making  of  the  country  off  their  hands-  and 
where  there  is  so  much  to  be  done,  it  is  indispensable  that  less 
should  be  said.  Their  debates,  therefore,  are  often  little  more 
than  conversations  across  the  table,  and  they  usually  abide  by 
ie  good  rule  of  carrying  the  measure  under  consideration  one 
step,  whenever  it  is  taken  up,  without  adjourning  the  debate 

/u?  i      \?    .COUrSC>  giveS  Way  °n  <luestions  of  great  interest'1 
(Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xvi,  p.  313.) 

It  was  the  same  experience  that  we  have  read  of  in 
the  lives  of  Lowell,  Holmes  and  other  distinguished 
Americans  who  havejrisited  England.  Breakfasts  and 

"Lyman's  Memorials,  vol.  ii,  p.  104. 
377 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

receptions  without  end  and  dinners  for  evermore. 
"  London  hospitalities,"  he  writes,  "  have  nearly  over 
whelmed  us,"  and  after  London  came  the  invitations  to 
the  country  seats  of  the  aristocracy.  His  old  friends 
who  had  known  him  when  they  travelled  in  America,  of 
course,  entertained  him.  He  went  to  Oxford  to  the 
national  cattle  show  and  made  a  speech,  the  only  one  he 
delivered  in  England.  Wherever  he  went  he  was  inves 
tigating  the  cattle  and  the  turnip  fields.  The  recent 
introduction  of  steamboats,  which,  it  seems,  had  poured 
crowds  of  tourists  into  Scotland,  spoiled  part  of  his 
pleasure.  He  had  hoped  to  roam  among  the  scenes  of 
Scott's  romances  unannoyed  by  bustle  and  hurry.  He 
longed  to  walk  with  just  one  companion  over  the  moun 
tains  "  and  moralize  by  the  way."  He  wanted  to  "  go 
far  to  the  north  and  see  the  main  frame  of  the  highland 
world." 

Carlyle  met  him  in  London  and  wrote  a  characteristic 
description  in  a  letter  to  Emerson. 

"  Not  many  days  ago  I  saw  at  breakfast  the  notablest  of 
all  your  notables,  Daniel  Webster.  He  is  a  magnificent 
specimen.  You  might  say  to  all  the  world,  '  This  is  our  Yankee 
Englishman ;  such  limbs  we  make  in  Yankee-land ! '  As  a 
logic-fencer,  advocate,  or  parliamentary  Hercules,  one  would 
incline  to  back  him  at  first  sight  against  all  the  extant  world. 
The  tanned  complexion ;  that  amorphous,  crag-like  face ;  the  dull 
black  eyes  under  the  precipice  of  brows,  like  dull  anthracite 
furnaces,  needing  only  to  be  blown ;  the  mastiff  mouth,  accu 
rately  closed;  I  have  not  traced  so  much  of  silent  Berserker 
rage,  that  I  remember  of,  in  any  other  man.  '  I  guess  I  should 
not  like  to  be  your  nigger ! '  Webster  is  not  loquacious,  but 
he  is  pertinent,  conclusive;  a  dignified,  perfectly  bred  man, 
though  not  English  in  breeding;  a  man  worthy  of  the  best 
reception  among  us,  and  meeting  such,  I  understand." 

Mr.  John  Kenyon,  an  Englishman,  who  saw  a  good 
deal  of  the  Websters  and  travelled  with  them  at  times, 
has  left  some  very  interesting  reminiscences  far  too  long 
to  quote  in  full.  He  was  with  them  at  Oxford ;  but  dis 
liking  the  crowd  at  the  agricultural  dinner,  dined  with 

378 


VISIT  TO  ENGLAND 

Webster's  family  at  their  hotel  while  Webster  himself 
was  delivering  his  speech  at  the  meeting". 

"  He  returned  to  us  early  in  the  evening,  sliding  into  the 
room  joyously,  half  as  if  he  were  dancing,  and  as  if  to  tell  us, 
good  naturedly,  that  he  was  glad  to  come  back  to  us.  After 
a  little  while  I  said,  '  But  I  am  sorry  to  have  missed  your 
speech,  which  they  say  was  a  capital  one.'  '  Order  in  some  wine 
and  water  and  I  will  speak  it  to  you  over  again ' ;  which  he 
did  most  festively,  stopping  by  the  way  to  tell  me  that  he  had 
wished  and  had  prearranged  with  himself  to  make  such  and 
such  points.  Fancy  how  delightful  and  how  attaching  I  found 
all  this  genial  bearing,  from  so  famous  a  man ;  so  affectionate, 
so  little  of  a  humbug.  His  greatness  sat  so  easy  and  calm  on 
him;  he  never  had  occasion  to  whip  himself  into  a  froth." 

His  address  at  Oxford  was  not  as  notable  as  he  could 
have  made  it.  From  something  he  says  it  appears  that 
he  found  the  audience  and  circumstances  not  favorable 
to  a  long  speech.  So  his  brief  remarks  were  for  the 
most  part  complimentary  and  rather  an  introduction  to 
what  might  have  been  a  speech.  For  a  moment  he  got 
on  the  subject  of  the  oneness  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race, 
hands  across  the  sea,  brothers,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing, 
which  has  so  often  been  enlarged  upon  in  our  time.  It 
was  less  hackneyed  then,  and  in  view  of  the  way  in  which 
he  wished  to  settle  the  rather  serious  matters  of  dispute 
between  us  and  England,  he  might  naturally  have 
wished  to  say  more  on  this  point.  But  very  likely  he 
said  enough. 

One  thing  he  said  about  English  agriculture  shows 
us  how  times  have  changed.  Agricultural  land,  espe 
cially  wheat  cultivation,  has  so  increased  in  area  all 
over  the  world  that  it  is  a  long  time  since  anyone  has 
thought  of  the  crops  raised  in  little  England  as  much 
more  than  a  drop  in  the  bucket.  But  Webster  reminded 
his  hearers  that  the  fear  of  a  short  crop  in  England 
"  deranges  and  agitates  the  business  transactions  and 
commercial  speculations  of  the  whole  trading  world." 

When  he  returned  home  the  Massachusetts  Legis 
lature,  largely  composed  of  farmers,  insisted  on  his  de- 

379 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

livering  before  them  an  address  on  English  agriculture. 
This  was  far  more  interesting  than  his  Oxford  speech, 
and  shows  not  only  his  enjoyment  of  farming  and  his 
close  observation,  but  is  of  some  historical  value  on  the 
English  methods  of  that  day.  Those  were  the  days  of 
very  profitable  agriculture,  when  the  turnip  was  King 
of  England  as  cotton  was  supposed  to  be  King  of 
America.  It  had  been  discovered,  not  so  very  long 
before,  that  turnips  were  the  best  rotation  after  wheat 
and  barley ;  and,  as  Webster  said,  "  they  vastly  enriched 
England."  They  rested  and  with  their  broad  leaves 
shaded  from  the  defertilizing  effects  of  sun  and  wind 
the  ground  that  formerly  had  been  wastefully  allowed  to 
lie  bare  with  all  the  risks  of  that  condition.  At  the 
same  time  they  fed  millions  of  sheep,  which  ate  them 
all  winter  long  on  the  ground. 

Webster  describes  some  turnip  fields  of  four  hun 
dred  acres.  Most  of  them,  however,  were  of  the  more 
usual  size  of  thirty  or  fifty  acres.  It  astonished  him 
that  the  sheep  could  live  out  all  winter  without  shelter, 
and  the  large  profit  was  obvious.  The  wonderful  breeds 
of  fine  cattle  and  sheep,  of  course,  delighted  him.  In 
deed,  it  was  the  turnip  that  had  developed  these  fine 
breeds,  especially  of  the  sheep.  The  turnip  was  every 
thing.  The  literature  of  the  country  life  of  that  time 
is  full  of  it.  The  English  partridge  found  shelter  under 
the  broad  leaves,  was  also  developed  in  great  numbers, 
and  afforded  the  finest  sport  with  pointer  and  setter 
dogs  that  the  English  country  gentlemen  had  ever 
known.  The  dogs  themselves  were  developed  to  that 
perfection  of  intelligence  and  training  we  have  known 
in  our  time.  The  country  gentleman  himself  was  de 
veloped  by  the  profits  and  the  sport  to  a  nobler  character 
than  before;  and  surely  if  the  turnip  was  not  King  of 
England,  it  deserved  to  be  adopted  as  the  national 
emblem  of  that  age.7 

T  Besides  his  speech  see  a  letter,  Works,  National  Edition, 
vol.  xvi,  p.  314. 

380 


VISIT  TO  ENGLAND 


Wei>ster  had 


age  and  sowing  with  a  drill,  which  were  then  rather  new 
ideas,  and  he  also  described  the  irrigation  at  Sherwood 
Forest. 

Although  nothing  was  ever  positively  said  about  it, 
yet  it  is  probable  that  .Webster  took  particular  pains 
to  make  himself  agreeable  in  England,  with  the  design 
that  confidence  and  good  will  of  that  sort  would  be  a 
great  help  to  him  if  he  should  be  called  upon  to  settle 
the  diplomatic  difficulties  between  the  two  countries. 
In  this  part  of  his  plan  he  certainly  succeeded. 

"  Mr.  Webster's  calm  manner  of  speaking,"  says  Miss 
Mitford,  "  excited  much  admiration,  and  perhaps  a  little  sur 
prise,  as  contrasted  with  the  astounding  and  somewhat  rough 
rapidity  of  progress  which  is  the  chief  characteristic  of  his 
native  land.  And  yet  that  calmness  of  manner  was  just  what 
might  be  expected  from  a  countryman  of  Washington  ;  earnest, 
thoughtful,  weighty,  wise.  No  visitor  to  London  ever  left 
behind  him  pleasanter  recollections,  and  I  hope  that  the  good 
impression  was  reciprocal.  Everybody  was  delighted  with 
his  geniality  and  taste;  and  he  could  hardly  fail  to  like  the 
people  who  so  heartily  liked  him."  (Mary  Russell  Mitford, 
Recollections  of  a  Literary  Life.) 

Mr.  Kenyon  took  him  and  his  family  to  see  Miss 
Mitford.  They  walked  in  her  pretty  garden  ;  and  he 
afterwards  sent  her  some  seeds  of  American  plants, 
which  she  considered  a  very  distinguished  and  kind 
attention.  He  left  England,  Mr.  Denison  tells  us,  as  if 
he  had  again  determined  to  quit  both  public  and  profes 
sional  life  and  devote  himself  more  to  his  great  western 
farm  in  Illinois.  He  no  doubt  talked  much  of  the 
waving  prairies  ;  but  when  he  arrived  in  New  York  on 
the  29th  of  December,  1839,  ne  found  that  a  few  weeks 
before  the  Whigs  had  at  last  succeeded  in  holding  a 
national  convention,  had  again  nominated  General  Har 
rison  for  the  Presidency  and  there  was  heavy  work  to 
be  done. 

He  took  his  accustomed  place  in  the  Senate  in 
February,  1840,  having  been  re-elected  the  previous 

381 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

year.  But  the  only  striking  event  in  his  life  this  winter 
and  spring  was  not  political.  Young  Ray  Thomas, 
whom  he  employed  as  agent  for  his  western  lands  and 
to  whom  he  had  taken  a  great  fancy  and  treated  like  one 
of  his  family,  came  to  Washington  to  see  him,  was 
taken  ill  of  one  of  those  violent  bilious  fevers  so  much 
heard  of  in  those  times,  and  died.  His  illness  was  pecu 
liarly  distressing,  accompanied  by  convulsions  and 
delirium ;  but  the  distinguished  Senator  from  Massa 
chusetts  was  frequently  at  his  bedside  and  "  for  about 
a  week,''  the  doctor  reported,  "  was  with  him  almost 
constantly  day  and  night."  His  careful  and  detailed 
letters  to  the  young  man's  parents  every  day,  and  some 
times  twice  a  day,  are  really  beautiful,  a  revelation 
of  a  wonderful  character  and  tenderness,  but  unfor 
tunately  too  many  to  quote  in  this  volume.  He  sent 
the  body  home  to  be  buried  in  his  own  graveyard  at 
Marshfield. 

Soon  afterwards  the  Presidential  campaign  to  elect 
Harrison  began  and  Webster's  services  were  demanded. 
The  Jacksonian  craze  had  passed ;  and  the  eyes  of  the 
people  were  opening.  As  a  result  of  Democratic  rule 
through  two  administrations  of  "  Old  Hickory  "  and  one 
of  his  pupil,  Van  Buren,  the  people  saw  nothing  but  a 
continuous  and  universal  derangement  of  the  currency 
and  a  continuous  series  of  financial  panics  and  bank 
ruptcies.  They  were  amazed,  lost  faith  in  their  heroes, 
were  ready  for  a  peaceful  revolution,  and  very  anxious 
to  hear  arguments  and  ideas.  Immense  crowds  attended 
the  meetings,  speech-makings,  conventions  and  pro 
cessions  which  were  gotten  up  on  every  occasion  and 
excuse  all  over  the  country. 

The  Whig  candidate.  General  Harrison,  was  not  a 
man  of  very  marked  ability ;  but  he  had  certain  charac 
teristics,  in  a  small  way,  resembling  the  most  popular 
of  Jackson's,  which  marie  him  the  best  person  that 
could  have  been  nominated.  He  had  fought  in  the 
War  of  1812,  he  had  been  poor  in  his  youth,  had  lived 

382 


HARD  CIDER  CAMPAIGN 

in  a  log  cabin,  and  had  a  reputation  for  honesty.  The 
log  cabin  proved  to  be  an  unforeseen  but  most  lucky 
accident.  It  took  the  place  of  "  By  the  Eternal "  and 
other  forms  of  Jacksonian  fury.  The  Democrats  un 
wittingly  started  it.  Some  of  their  newspapers  began 
ridiculing  the  origin  of  Harrison,  saying  that  he  had 
been  born  in  a  log  cabin,  that  his  mother  had  cradled 
him  in  a  sap  trough,  rocked  him  to  sleep  in  a  hog  trough, 
dressed  him  in  coonskins,  and  brought  him  up  on  hard 
cider.  It  was  a  most  fatal  mistake.  The  Whigs  saw 
their  chance  and  adopted  it  all.  WebsterjiimseUjt^gon\- 
mended  it.  "Let  him."  he  safiT  "be  the  log  cabin 
candidate." 

TSTpictures  and  speeches  represented  Harrison  as 
the  log-cabin  hard-cider  coonskin  candidate.  The 
Whigs  called  themselves  coons  and  called  the  Demo 
crats  Locofocos,  because  when  the  lights  went  out  at 
a  Democratic  meeting  in  Tammany  Hall  they  lit  locofoco 
matches.  Great  capital  was  made  of  Harrison's  victory 
over  the  Indians  at  Tippecanoe,  and  there  was  a  song  of 
'''  Tippecanoe  and  Tyler  too."  Log  cabins  were  carried 
in  processions.  The  people  assembled  in  log  cabins  or 
at  "  hard-cider  log-cabin  coonskin  bear-trap  Tippe- 
canoe-and-Tyler-too  mass  meetings,"  to  make  speeches, 
drink  the  old  frontier  cider,  and  sing  songs  about  Tippe 
canoe.  It  was  in  this  "  hard  cider  campaign  "  that  the 
effectiveness  of  the  political  procession  as  a  means  of 
excitement  is  supposed  to  have  been  discovered;  and 
never  before  had  the  political  procession  been  so  much 
used. 

Webster's  part  was  to  deliver  some  powerful  and 
dignified  speeches  at  Saratoga,  New  York  and  Rich 
mond.  He  was  in  great  demand,  and,  if  he  had  accepted 
all  the  invitations,  would  not  have  had  a  day  or  a  night 
to  himself.  More  than  fifteen  different  towns  claimed 
him  for  their  Fourth  of  July.  The  universal  wish  to 
hear  him,  the  very  large  reliance  on  him  as  a  guide, 
the  confidence  in  his  reasoning  and  opinions  have  caused 

383 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

many  besides  himself  to  wonder  at  his  inability  to  be 
even  nominated  for  the  Presidency.  But  the  success  of 
the  coonskins  and  the  log  cabin  shows  the  cause. 

Neither  he  nor  Clay,  even  supposing  their  intellectual 
and  rhetorical  ability  to  have  been  ten  times  what  it  was, 
could  come  up  to  the  method  of  those  "  funny  tricks  " 
which  alone  at  that  time  convinced  the  masses  of  a 
man's  fitness  for  the  Presidency.  In  our  own  times  of 
Cleveland,  Roosevelt  and  Taft  there  would  have  been 
much  more  of  a  chance  for  Webster  and  Clay.  But 
in  the  period  of  1830  to  1850,  of  that  most  extraordinary 
phase  of  the  spirit  of  Democracy,  there  was  practically 
none. 

Webster's  Saratoga  speech  stands  out  conspicuously 
in  the  history  of  his  life  and  in  the  history  of  that  time. 
He  had  prepared  himself,  it  seems,  very  carefully  for  it, 
and  it  was  to  be  delivered  at  a  mass  meeting  near  his 
old  home  at  Salisbury,  New  Hampshire.  But  that 
meeting  having  been  postponed  and  Webster  being  at 
Saratoga  arguing  a  case  before  the  New  York  Court  of 
Errors,  he  was  urged  so  strongly  to  appear  at  a  mass 
meeting  to  be  held  immediately  at  Saratoga,  that  he 
could  not  very  well  refuse ;  so  he  gave  them  the  well- 
thought-out  Salisbury  speech.8 

It  was  a  partisan  speech,  and  has  usually  been 
thought  the  best  speech  of  that  sort  he  ever  made.  An 
immense  crowd  assembled  from  all  the  neighboring 
region  just  as  immense  crowds  were  assembling  all  over 
the  country  at  the  slightest  suggestion  of  a  political  dis 
cussion;  for  the  whole  Union  was  deeply  stirred,  felt 
itself  in  a  revolution  and  was  seeking  light.  The  great 
meeting  was  held  on  a  little  eminence  in  a  fine  grove 
of  pines ;  and  just  before  it  assembled  a  heavy  thunder 
storm  and  deluge  of  rain  threatened  to  spoil  the  day. 
But  the  storm  passed,  the  people  assembled  more  en 
thusiastic  than  ever,  and  after  Webster  had  been  speak- 


8  Dearborn,  History  of  Salisbury,  p.  105. 
384 


HARD  CIDER  CAMPAIGN 

ing  a  few  minutes  the  platform  on  which  he  stood  with 
the  chairman,  officials  and  distinguished  guests  went 
down  with  a  crash.  He  was  the  first  to  climb  up  on 
some  fragments  of  the  staging  and  announce  in  his 
powerful  voice  that  no  one  was  hurt  and  that  the  great 
Whig  platform  was  a  more  solid  structure  than  the  one 
that  had  sunk  beneath  their  feet.  Confidence  and  good 
humor  were  at  once  restored ;  a  "  red  pedlar  wagon  with 
sloping  sides  and  a  top  about  eight  inches  wide" 
was  brought  for  him  to  stand  on,  and  balancing  himself 
on  this  he  took  up  his  argument  again  as  if  nothing  had 
happened. 

It  was  largely  an  attack  upon  the  sub-treasury  plan 
and  its  attendant  Van  Buren  principle  "  that  the  govern 
ment  has  nothing  to  do  with  providing  a  currency  for 
the  country."  He  described  humorously  how  Van 
Buren,  not  daring  to  support  a  United  States  Bank 
and  not  daring  to  support  any  of  the  pet  bank  schemes 
and  other  disastrous  measures  of  his  predecessor  Jack 
son,  not  daring,  in  short,  to  go  forward  or  backward, 
had  escaped  into  this  plan  of  abandoning  all  efforts  to 
regulate  the  currency.  We  must  forgive  Webster  for 
his  heavy  attack  on  the  sub-treasury,  because  his  attack 
was  mainly  upon  the  absurdities  that  Van  Buren  wanted 
to  add  to  it;  one  of  the  worst  of  which  was  that  the 
debts  due  the  government  and  debts  paid  by  the  govern 
ment  must  all  be  discharged  in  specie,  and  banks  and 
bank  notes,  whether  redeemable  in  specie  or  not,  must 
all  be  driven  out  of  existence. 

In  his  attack  on  this  specie  delusion  Webster  was 
unquestionably  right;  and  it  was  the  most  powerful 
part  of  his  speech. 

"  Government  pays  in  large  sums,  to  large  contractors ;  and 
to  these  it  may  pay  gold  and  silver.  But  do  the  gold  and 
silver  reach  those  whom  the  contractor  employs?  On  the 
contrary,  the  contractors  deal  as  they  see  fit  with  those  whom 
they  employ  or  of  whom  they  purchase.  The  Army  and  Navy 
are  fed  and  clothed  by  contract;  the  materials  for  expensive 
25  385 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

custom  houses,  fortifications,  for  the  Cumberland  Road,  and 
for  other  public  works,  are  all  supplied  by  contract.  Large 
contractors  flock  to  Washington,  and  receive  their  tons  of 
gold  and  silver;  but  do  they  carry  it  with  them  to  Maine, 
Mississippi,  Michigan,  or  wherever  their  residence  and  voca 
tion  may  be?  No,  not  a  dollar;  but  selling  it  for  depreciated 
paper,  the  contractor  swells  his  previous  profits  by  this  added 
premium,  and  pays  off  those  he  owes  in  depreciated  bank 
notes." 

He  gave  a  most  valuable  description  of  American 
labor  and  manufacturing  of  that  day.  The  great  inter 
ests,  the  great  industrial  plants,  combinations  of  capital, 
enormous  department  stores  and  jobbing  houses  of  our 
time  were  unknown.  Pretty  much  all  industries  and 
manufacturing  were  carried  on  by  individuals  employing 
a  few  workmen.  "  Nine-tenths  of  the  whole  labor  of 
this  country,"  he  said,  "  is  performed  by  those  who 
cultivate  the  land  they  or  their  fathers  own,  or  who,  in 
their  workshops,  employ  some  little  capital  of  their  own 
and  mix  it  up  with  their  manual  toil.  No  such  thing 
exists  in  other  countries."  It  was  indeed  an  ideal  sys 
tem  as  we  look  back  at  it.  The  laboring  classes  he 
described  enjoyed  good  living,  comfortable  homes  and 
educated  their  children.  But  the  Jacksonian  and  Van 
Buren  financial  experiments  had  ruined  millions  of 
them,  reduced  them  to  poverty,  and  in  the  confusion 
of  the  currency  the  rich  had  had  a  glorious  chance  to 
grow  richer  while  the  poor  grew  poorer.  He  described 
the  methods  by  which  contractors,  ship-owners  and 
capitalists  had  recently  made  sudden  and  enormous  for 
tunes  out  of  the  Jacksonian  muddle  and  the  misfortunes 
of  the  poor.  If  ever  there  was  a  piece  of  humbuggery  on 
earth  it  was  the  pose  of  old  Jackson  that  he  was  the 
special  friend  of  the  masses.  No  one  has  ever  appeared 
in  American  politics  who  has  ruined  so  many  of  them. 

It  was  in  giving  instances  of  all  this  that  he  amused 
and  pleased  everybody  by  quoting  some  very  practical 
and  pointed  comments  of  his  favorite  boatman,  Seth 
Peterson.  It  no  doubt  gave  him  the  greatest  pleasure  to 
make  Seth  famous. 

386 


HARD  CIDER  CAMPAIGN 

"Now,  gentlemen,  though  he  will  be  astonished,  or 
amused,  that  I  should  tell  the  story  before  such  a  vast  and 
respectable  assemblage  as  this,  I  will  place  this  argument  of 
Seth  Peterson,  sometimes  farmer  and  sometimes  fisherman  on 
the  coast  of  Massachusetts,  stated  to  me  while  pulling  an  oar 
with  each  hand,  and  with  the  sleeves  of  his  red  shirt  rolled  up 
above  his  elbows,  against  the  reasonings,  the  theories  and  the 
speeches  of  the  administration  and  all  its  friends,  in  or  out  of 
Congress,  and  take  the  verdict  of  the  country  and  of  the 
civilized  world,  whether  he  has  not  the  best  of  the  argument." 

Then  he  described  Peterson  and  his  happy,  vigorous 
life  on  sea  and  shore,  the  unencumbered  acres  of  his 
little  farm  which  his  thrift  and  labor  had  won,  his  com 
fortable  house,  and  his  children  all  going  to  school.  It 
was  a  picture  he  loved ;  he  loved  that  sort  of  man ;  and 
he  described  other  types  of  American  prosperity  which 
the  Jacksonian  experiments  were  tearing  down. 

This  is  one  of  the  speeches  that  Webster  is  supposed 
to  have  delivered  in  a  fit  of  drunkenness ;  that  is  to  say, 
one  of  the  best  speeches  of  his  life  was  delivered  by  him 
when  he  was  so  drunk  that  he  could  not  walk,  and  yet 
he  held  a  large  mixed  audience  for  nearly  three  hours 
with  an  argument  of  such  intellectual  force  that  it  made 
a  most  profound  impression  upon  the  whole  country. 
Has  there  ever  been  such  a  glorification  of  drink? 

Mr.  Charles  A.  Stetson,  who  was  with  him  and  sat 
on  one  end  of  the  narrow  top  of  the  pedlar's  wagon, 
while  President  King,  of  Columbia  College,  sat  on  the 
other,  says  that  in  balancing  himself  on  the  narrow  top 
only  eight  inches  wide  Webster  had  no  proper  support 
for  his  toes  or  his  heels  and  spoke  in  that  position  for 
two  hours  and  forty  minutes.  He  was  so  exhausted 
and  stiff  that  he  had  to  be  helped  down,  helped  to  a  car 
riage,  "put  his  knee  to  the  step  and  fairly  crept  into 
the  carriage."  Stetson  felt  sure  that  a  charge  of  drunk 
enness  would  be  made;  and  soon  heard  from  some  one 
in  the  crowd,  "What  a  fine  speech!  But  wasn't  he 
bloody  tight  ?  "  9 

9  Wilkinson,  Daniel  Webster,  A  Vindication,  p.  119. 
387 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

At  Patchogue,  on  Long  Island,  he  delivered  a  speech 
which  he  took  no  pains  to  preserve,  evidently  because  it 
was  a  stump  speech.  But  it  has  been  dug  out  from  the 
newspapers  of  the  day  and  is  valuable  because  it  shows 
his  style  in  that  form  of  oratory.  He  was  telling  his 
hearers  not  to  let  the  Democrats  deceive  them  with  all 
sorts  of  cunning  words  and  phrases  about  Democracy 
and  aristocrats. 

"  How  do  you  do  when  you  go  out  into  the  South  Bay  to 
shoot  ducks?  Don't  you  bough  'em  all  round,  and  manoeuvre 
with  the  most  specious  appearances  on  the  outside  and  in 
front?  But  isn't  there  an  old  King's  arm  behind  all,  and  isn't 
there  plenty  of  good  gunpowder  and  lots  of  double  B  shot ;  and 
when  you  get  well  in  among  'em,  don't  you  let  'em  have  it? 
Now,  then,  what  I  say  to  you  is  don't  be  web-footed !  " 

But  a  little  farther  on  he  could  not  restrain  his  liter 
ary  taste,  and  in  describing  how  the  Democrats  were 
talking  of  nothing  but  sub-treasury,  sub-treasury,  sub- 
treasury,  he  said  it  reminded  him  of  the  old  classical 
tale  of  Orpheus  going  to  seek  Eurydice  and  shouting 
the  beautiful  name  until  all  nature  was  full  of  it. 

"  Eurydice  the  woods, 
Eurydice  the  floods, 
Eurydice  the  rocks  and  hollow  mountains  rang." 

And  with  our  government  it  is — 

"  Sub-Treasury  the  woods, 
Sub-Treasury  the  floods, 
Sub-Treasury  the  rocks  and  hollow  mountains  ring." 

Harrison  and  Tyler  swept  the  country,  receiving  234 
out  of  the  294  electoral  votes,  and  leaving  only  60  to 
the  Democratic  candidates,  Van  Buren  and  Johnson. 
I  Tarrison  made  Webster  his  Secretary  of  State,  and  one 
of  the  new  secretary's  first  duties  was  to  keep  the  Presi 
dent  from  making  too  much  of  an  exhibition  of  himself 
in  his  inaugural  address.  He  was  a  great  reader  of 
Plutarch  and  tried  to  make  up  for  a  deficient  education 
by  classical  allusions  in  excess  even  of  the  excessive 

388 


SECRETARY  OF  STATE 

taste  of  that  time.  Being  asked  after  the  battle  of 
Tippecanoe  about  the  behavior  of  his  men,  he  said  that 
"  every  one  of  them  was  a  Leonidas,  an  Epaminondas  or 
a  Horatius  codes."  Webster  had  a  severe  struggle 
with  him  over  his  preparation  of  the  inaugural,  and 
returning  from  the  White  House  late  one  afternoon  Mrs. 
Seaton,  at  whose  house  he  was  living,  remarked  that  he 
looked  exhausted  and  worried  and  asked  if  anything 
had  happened.  "  You  would  think  that  something  had 
happened,"  he  said,  "  if  you  knew  what  I  have  done. 
I  have  killed  seventeen  Roman  proconsuls." 

The  overwhelming  vote  for  Harrison  undoubtedly 
meant  that  the  people  had  had  enough  of  the  Jackson 
and  Van  Buren  Democratic  methods  of  finance;  but 
it  did  not  altogether  mean  that  they  wanted  a  bank  as 
a  financial  method  of  the  government.  Some  of  those 
who  voted  for  Harrison  and  Tyler  were  still  in  the  bank 
delusion ;  but  many,  even  many  Whigs,  were  not.  The 
two  candidates  represented  this  divided  feeling.  Harri 
son  was  moderately  in  favor  of  a  bank.  Tyler  was 
opposed  to  a  bank.10 

General  Harrison  died  about  a  month  after  his  inau 
guration  in  1841.  Having  a  majority  in  both  Houses 
of  Congress,  the  Whigs  repealed  the  excellent  sub- 
treasury  law  and  then  passed  two  acts  to  establish  a 
national  bank.  Tyler,  who  succeeded  to  the  Presidency, 
was  a  Virginian,  and  not  a  Whig.  The  name  Whig  had 
been  applied  to  him  only  in  that  perversion  of  it  which 
was  used  to  describe  those  who  supported  the  South 
Carolina  nullifiers  against  Jackson.  Tyler  was,  in  fact, 
a  State-rights  Democrat  who,  in  accordance  with  the 
peculiar  method  used  by  the  Whigs  in  those  days,  had 
been  put  on  the  ticket  with  Harrison  merely  to  catch 
southern  votes.  He  had  not  vetoed  the  repeal  of  the 
sub-treasury  law,  but  he  vetoed  both  the  acts  creating 
a  United  States  Bank ;  and  the  Whig  majority  was  not 
strong  enough  to  pass  them  over  his  veto.  That  for- 

10  Webster,  Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xvi,  p    345 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

tunatcly  was  the  end  of  all  attempts  to  restore  the  bank, 
and  it  passed  into  history. 

In  1846  the  Democrats  restored  the  sub-treasury 
plan ;  and  in  the  Civil  War  Congress  adopted  the 
national  banking  system,  by  which  banks  throughout  the 
country  were  allowed  to  issue  currency  when  they  had 
deposited  a  slightly  larger  amount  of  government  bonds 
with  the  government  at  Washington.  By  this  means 
these  national  banks  throughout  the  country  tend  to 
keep  the  currency  stable  and  of  equal  value  in  all  places. 
That  had  been  the  most  important  function  of  the 
United  States  Bank  by  means  of  its  branches  in  different 
States.  The  United  States  Bank's  other  function  of 
acting  as  a  place  of  deposit  for  the  public  money  is 
now  well  filled  by  the  sub-treasury  plan  of  leaving  the 
money  in  the  hands  of  the  collectors  under  bond  and  to 
be  paid  out  by  Treasury  orders.  The  United  States 
Bank's  third  function  of  lending  money  to  the  govern 
ment  was  accomplished  on  an  enormous  scale  in  the 
Civil  War  by  raising  money  on  bonds  directly  from 
the  people  and  from  the  banks  in  the  national  banking 
system  which  had  to  own  and  deposit  at  Washington 
sufficient  bonds  to  secure  their  issue  of  currency. 

In  this  way  the  financial  system  of  the  country 
was  finally  worked  out  to  success  through  more  than 
two  generations  by  a  process  of  evolution  from  the 
original  crudeness  of  a  currency  of  varying  value  in 
different  States  and  of  a  government  that  did  not  know 
exactly  where  to  deposit  or  keep  the  money  it  had  on 
hand.  In  the  beginning  of  this  process  there  is  no 
question  that  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  was  of 
infinite  usefulness  and  that  Webster's  principles  and 
arguments  were  originally  sound.  But  he  and  the 
\¥higs  could  not  see  that  there  were  other  ways  of 
attaining  solvency  and  stability,  and  that  to  allow  such 
a  powerful  and  growing  institution  as  the  Bank  to  fasten 
itself  any  longer  like  a  leech  on  the  government  would 
bring  ruinous  corruption. 

390 


SECRETARY  OF  STATE 

When,  therefore,  President  Harrison  died  and  his 
successor  Tyler  vetoed  the  Bank  bills,  there  was  a 
serious  break  and  much  ill  feeling  between  Tyler  and 
those  of  the  Whigs,  a  very  large  number  of  them,  who 
still  believed  that  a  United  States  Bank  was  an  absolute 
necessity.  All  the  cabinet  officers  resigned  except  Web 
ster,  whom  Harrison  had  made  Secretary  of  State,  and 
who  had  started  on  the  great  negotiation  with  England 
over  the  boundary  between  Maine  and  Canada.  Web- 
ster  was  no  longer  fanatical  about  the  BaaL.  „  He  be- 
rreve(Tlhatl)nT"or~some~sort  sufficient  to  keep  the  cur 
rency  stable  would  be  a  valuable  help,  and  was  indeed  a 
necessity;  but  he  would  go  about  obtaining  it  in  a 
moderate  way.11 

He  tried  his  utmost  to  prevent  the  break  between 
Tyler  and  the  Whigs.  It  would  ruin  the  Whig  party, 
he  said,  and  help  neither  the  bank  nor  the  country. 
When  Tyler  vetoed  the  first  bank  bill  Webster  urged 
the  leaders  of  the  party  not  to  press  another  similar  bill 
and  not  to  attack  and  abuse  their  own  President.  But 
they  would  not  be  restrained.  Henry  Clay  exhausted 
his  power  of  ridicule  and  sarcasm  in  the  Senate  in  de 
nouncing  Tyler ;  Whig  newspapers  attacked  him  in  edi 
torials  and  prominent  Whigs  wrote  bitter  and  abusive 
letters.  They  introduced  in  Congress  another  bill  for 
creating  a  "  Federal  Corporation  of  the  United  States  " 
which  was  a  national  bank  without  the  power  of  dis 
counting  local  notes  in  the  States.  This  they  thought 
they  could  force  Tyler  to  accept  by  denouncing  him  in 
Congress  and  in  the 'press.  Their  attacks  naturally  de 
termined  him  the  other  way.  He  vetoed  the  bill  and 
the  breach  was  complete. 

When  the  cabinet  began  resigning  Webster  regarded 
it  as  a  mere  continuation  of  the  plan  of  the  party  to 
harass  their  own  President,  and  he  refused  to  imitate 
them.  He  believed  in  the  necessity  of  a  national  bank, 

"Works,   National   Edition,  vol.   xvi,  pp.  344-352,  358. 
391 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

but  he  also  believed  that  in  spite  of  its  loss  the  President 
would  unite  with  Congress  in  overcoming  the  difficulties 
of  the  situation  by  other  means  ;  "  and  it  is  to  the  union 
of  the  Whig  party — by  which  I  mean  the  whole  party, 
the  Whig  President,  the  Whig  Congress  and  the  Whig 
people — that  I  look  for  a  realization  of  our  wishes." 
Moreover  he  would  not  in  any  event  resign  suddenly 
without  notice,  as  the  others  had  done,  and  throw  into 
disorder  the  unusually  delicate  relations  of  the  country. 
Although  the  Massachusetts  members  of  the  Congress 
approved  of  his  stand,  he  was  nevertheless  severely 
criticized  for  it  by  other  members  of  his  party.  The 
Whigs  were,  in  fact,  again  disorganized  and  demoral 
ized,  and  Webster  was  fortunate  in  strength  of  reputa 
tion  and  character  sufficient  to  support  him  in  that  inde 
pendent  position  which  enabled  him  to  stay  in  the 
cabinet.  From  his  cabinet  position  he  negotiated  the 
Treaty  of  Washington,  or  Ashburton  Treaty,  one  of 
the  most  conspicuous  services  of  his  life. 


392 


XV 

THE  NORTHEAST  BOUNDARY  DISPUTE 

THE  negotiations  with  England  about  the  boundary 
between  Maine  and  Canada  had  been  begun  by  Webster 
before  the  death  of  General  Harrison.  Besides  the 
boundary  dispute  there  were  several  other  serious  topics, 
the  destruction  of  the  steamboat  Caroline,  the  trial  of 
McLeod  for  murder  and  the  rescue  of  slaves  from  the 
brig  Creole. 

The  Caroline  was  an  American  vessel  which  had  been 
used  to  carry  supplies  across  the  Niagara  River  to  the 
Canadian  insurgents,  who  in  1837  had  begun  the  famous 
rebellion  in  Canada  which  resulted  in  the  modern  self- 
governing  system  of  some  of  the  British  colonies.  A 
party  of  Canadian  loyalists  went  to  seize  her  at  Navy 
Island,  which  was  in  British  territory,  but  seeing  her 
lying  under  the  American  shore  opposite  they  crossed 
over,  set  her  on  fire  and  adrift,  and  she  was  carried 
over  Niagara  Falls.  In  the  struggle  to  seize  her  an 
American  citizen  named  Durfree  was  killed.  The  Brit 
ish  government  explained  this  hostile  invasion  of  our 
territory  as  an  excusable  and  necessary  measure  of  self- 
defence  in  suppressing  the  rebellion  among  her  Canadian 
subjects.  But  while  our  people  were  still  doubtful 
whether  this  explanation  was  satisfactory,  a  man  named 
Alexander  McLeod  appeared  in  the  State  of  New  York 
and  boasted  that  he  had  been  with  the  invading  party 
and  had  killed  Durfree.  He  was  arrested  and  tried  for 
murder  under  the  law  of  New  York. 

This  gave  the  English  a  grievance.  Their  govern 
ment,  they  said,  having  explained  their  seizure  of  the 
Caroline  to  be  a  public  act  and  necessary  measure  in 
suppression  of  the  rebellion,  any  killing  that  took  place 
in  the  seizure  was  an  act  of  war  and  not  murder.  But 

393 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

the  New  York  authorities  pressed  the  murder  trial, 
popular  feeling  in  both  countries  was  deeply  stirred, 
and  there  was  no  little  risk  of  hostilities  between  the 
two  great  divisions  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race.  In  fact, 
England  was  preparing  for  war;  her  Mediterranean 
fleet  was  assembling  at  Gibraltar;  a  home  fleet  of 
steamer  frigates  was  ready  for  a  descent  upon  the 
coast  of  the  United  States,  and  her  minister  at  Wash 
ington  was  believed  to  have  instructions  to  demand 
his  passports  if  McLeod  were  executed. 

The  situation  was  made  worse  in  the  winter  of  1841- 
42  by  the  brig  Creole,  a  vessel  engaged  in  carrying  a 
cargo  of  merchandise  and  slaves  from  Richmond  to  New 
Orleans.  The  slaves  rose  upon  the  master  and  crew 
and  took  the  vessel  into  the  port  of  Nassau  in  the 
British  West  Indies,  where  the  authorities  set  the  slaves 
at  liberty.  England  had  some  years  before  abolished 
slavery  in  all  her  colonies  and  was  vigorously  suppress 
ing  the  slave  trade  on  the  coast  of  Africa;  so  that  this 
rescue  of  American  slaves  at  Nassau  was  very  exasper 
ating  to  the  whole  southern  interest  in  the  United  States 
and  seemed  to  foreshadow,  like  so  many  other  events, 
more  and  more  interference  with  slavery. 

When  Webster  became  Secretary  of  State  in  March, 
1841,  the  two  governments  had  already  agreed  to  settle 
the  Maine  boundary  by  a  commission  to  meet  in  Wash 
ington.  But  this  might  all  be  broken  up  by  the  McLeod 
affair.  Webster  had  been  in  office  only  a  few  days  when 
the  British  minister  formally  demanded  McLeod's  re 
lease.  Webster  thereupon  instructed  the  Attorney- 
General  to  go  to  Lockport,  where  McLeod  was  being 
tried,  and  furnish  the  prisoner's  counsel  with  the  official 
evidence  that  the  attack  upon  the  Caroline  was  a  public 
act  and  political  one,  and  the  prisoner  not  in  any  way 
responsible  before  the  ordinary  State  tribunals.  At  the 
same  time  he  explained  to  the  British  minister,  and 
through  him  to  the  British  government,  that  the  Federal 
government  at  Washington  had  no  power  to  take  a  pris- 

394 


THE  NORTHEAST  BOUNDARY  DISPUTE 

oner  from  the  authorities  of  a  State  or  to  prevent  his 
being  tried.  The  Federal  government  was  doing  its 
utmost  to  secure  his  acquittal  in  the  State  court  by 
showing  that  his  killing  of  Durfree  was  the  act  of  a 
soldier  and  not  of  a  citizen;  and  that  was  all  they 
could  do. 

This  was  all  very  sound  from  our  point  of  view. 
But  suppose  the  court  and  jury  in  New  York,  acting 
under  the  influence  of  popular  excitement,  should  con 
vict  McLeod  of  murder.  In  other  words,  a  single  State 
court  in  a  community  bordering  upon  Canada,  largely 
in  sympathy  with  the  Canadian  rebellion,  and  intensely 
aroused  against  England,  had  it  in  its  power  to  com 
mit  the  Federal  government  and  the  whole  country  to 
war.  There  is  now  a  statute  for  the  removal  of  such 
cases  into  the  courts  of  the  United  States.  But  that 
necessity  had  not  been  foreseen  in  Webster's  time  and 
he  was  in  great  anxiety  as  to  what  might  happen  in 
New  York.  The  anxiety  was  by  no  means  imaginary ; 
for  the  prisoner's  counsel,  hoping  to  secure  a  more 
dispassionate  hearing,  took  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus 
to  the  Supreme  Court  of  New  York  asking  it  to  dis 
charge  their  client  on  the  ground  suggested  by  Webster, 
and  that  court,  though  supposed  to  be  far  above  popular 
clamor,  refused  to  discharge  the  prisoner  and  remanded 
him  to  trial. 

Meantime  Webster  was  dealing  with  the  British  gov 
ernment  on  the  question  of  the  seizure  of  the  Caroline, 
explaining  that  it  was  entirely  distinct  from  what  the 
New  York  courts  might  do  with  McLeod,  that  it  was 
a  violation  of  the  sanctity  of  our  territory,  a  violation 
of  the  laws  of  nations,  and  besides  the  avowal  of  it  as  a 
public  act  to  save  McLeod,  there  must  be  on  the  part  of 
Great  Britain  more  decided  expressions  of  regret  and 
excuse.  He  deprecated  hostile  feelings  and  hostilities 
and  urged  the  importance  of  "  such  a  spirit  of  candor, 
justice  and  mutual  respect  as  shall  give  assurance  of  the 
long  continuance  of  peace  between  the  two  countries." 

395 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

With  this  great  question  in  abeyance ;  the  trial  of 
McLeod  postponed  until  October;  the  press  of  the  dis 
organized  Whig  party  pretty  generally  condemning 
Webster  for  remaining  in  office  with  what  they  called 
a  renegade  President;  innumerable  letters  from  Whigs 
of  a  different  mind  pouring  in  upon  him  and  applaud 
ing  his  remaining  in  office  as  an  act  of  high  patriotism 
essential  to  the  safety  of  the  country;  the  Democrats 
in  Congress  denouncing  him  for  having  attempted  to 
interfere  with  the  administration  of  justice  in  the  sov 
ereign  State  of  New  York,  and  for  having  compromised 
the  honor  and  dignity  of  the  nation  by  what  they  called 
his  blundering  and  weak-kneed  communications  with 
the  government  of  Great  Britain ;  all  this  with  Con 
gress  in  session  during  the  whole  hot  summer  made  it 
a  trying  season  for  Webster.  No  longer  young,  with 
eyes  and  head  inflamed  by  his  annual  attack  of  what  is 
now  called  hay  fever,  and  long  ago  weary  of  the  "  din 
of  politics,"  he  would  have  been  only  too  glad  to  break 
away;  and  no  doubt  he  often  contemplated  with  secret 
pleasure  almost  any  possibility  that  would  relieve  him. 
"  You  may  hear  of  me  soon,  for  aught  I  know,  at  Marsh- 
field,  with  my  friend  Peterson,"  he  wrote  to  Edward 
Everett  in  announcing  Everett's  appointment  as  minister 
to  England.  "  It  will  be  no  bad  result  of  things,"  he 
again  writes,  "  that  shall  send  me  to  Boston  and  Marsh- 
field  again.  Oh  Marshfield !  and  the  sea,  the  sea !  " 

Not  till  October  did  relief  come.  McLeod  proved 
an  alibi  and  was  acquitted.  This  alibi  saved  a  war; 
for  judging  from  the  Supreme  Court  decision  the  de 
fence  of  his  having  acted  as  a  public  soldier  of  Canada 
might  not  have  been  accepted  by  the  New  York  trial 
judges  or  by  the  jury.  Webster  sent  to  the  next  session 
of  Congress  a  bill,  which  was  finally  passed,  for  remov 
ing  from  State  to  Federal  courts  all  cases  involving 
questions  with  foreign  governments. 

We  find  Webster  at  this  time  complaining  of  lack 
of  money.  Being  cut  off  from  the  practice  of  his  pro- 

396 


THE  NORTHEAST  BOUNDARY  DISPUTE 

fession,  the  salary  of  Secretary  of  State  was  obviously 
not  sufficient  for  his  land  buying,  experimental  farm 
ing,  and  pleasures  at  Marshfield,  his  new  farming  ven 
ture  in  Illinois  and  the  support  of  his  family  at  Wash 
ington,  with  incidental  entertainment  there  and  at 
Marshfield.  But  the  important  thing  now  is  his  ne 
gotiation  with  England  about  the  northeast  boundary 
between  Maine  and  Canada  leading  up  to  what  has  be 
come  known  as  the  Washington  or  Ashburton  Treaty 
of  1842. 

This  boundary  question  had  defied  the  skill  of  diplo 
matists  for  fifty  years;  but  for  the  last  ten  years  one 
of  the  difficulties  in  settling  it  had  been  that  in  all  that 
time,  except  a  few  months,  Lord  Palmerston  had  been 
the  foreign  secretary  of  the  British  government.  It  was 
a  Whig  administration,  the  famous  Whig  administration 
that  had  begun  the  reform  bill,  the  free  trade  movement, 
and  self-government  in  the  colonies,  and  yet  Palmerston 
as  foreign  secretary  had  some  very  decided  Tory  traits. 
He  had  been  originally  a  Tory  and  he  never  became  a 
complete  Whig.  He  carried  on  a  foreign  policy  of 
such  aggressiveness  that  there  may  be  said  to  have 
been  a  touch  of  jingoism  in  it.  He  was  a  very  difficult 
man  for  Americans  to  deal  with  without  going  to  war. 
American  politicians  he  regarded  as  entirely  too  aggres 
sive,  which,  being  translated,  meant  that  America  was 
standing  out  for  her  full  rights  instead  of  yielding  what 
he  wanted  and  contributing  to  the  brilliancy  of  his  repu 
tation  as  France,  Turkey  and  Egypt  had  done. 

With  such  a  man  as  this  at  the  head  of  British  diplo 
macy  and  McLeod  likely  to  be  convicted,  Webster's 
chances  of  a  peaceful  negotiation  had  been  very  slight 
in  that  summer  of  1841.  When  it  became  known  in 
England  that  the  Supreme  Court  of  New  York  had 
refused  to  discharge  McLeod  on  habeas  corpus  and 
rejected  the  defence  that  he  was  a  public  soldier,  a 
serious  crisis  was  approaching.  But  fortunately  for 
everybody,  about  the  time  that  McLeod  was  acquitted, 

397 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

the  famous  Whig  ministry  was  defeated,  and  Palmer- 
ston  passed  out  of  power.  The  ground  was  now  cleared 
of  one  very  serious  obstacle,  and  Webster  had  one  of 
the  great  opportunities  of  his  life. 

The  acquittal  of  McLeod  alone  might  not  have  been 
enough.  Webster  intended  to  settle  the  boundary,  the 
impressment  of  sailors,  the  right  of  search,  the  Caroline 
affair,  and  the  Creole  affair  by  mutual  yielding.  But 
concession  of  this  sort  was  the  very  thing  which  Palmer- 
ston  detested.  His  last  acts  and  words  in  retiring  from 
office  seemed  to  render  any  settlement  without  war 
extremely  difficult  if  not  impossible ;  and  he  afterwards 
as  leader  of  the  opposition  in  Parliament  attacked  the 
treaty  made  by  Webster  as  ruinous  to  the  interest,  the 
tranquillity  and  the  honor  of  England. 

But  under  his  successor  in  office,  Lord  Aberdeen,  the 
situation  was  very  much  more  favorable,  although  the 
administration  was  Tory,  under  the  leadership  of  Sir 
Robert  Peel,  the  founder  of  the  modern  Conservative 
party.  Lord  Ashburton,  whose  wife  was  an  American, 
the  daughter  of  a  United  States  Senator,  Mr.  William 
Bingham,  of  Philadelphia,  was  sent  as  a  commissioner 
to  Washington  to  negotiate  a  settlement  of  all  diffi 
culties.  Edward  Everett,  an  intimate  and  trusted  friend 
of  Webster,  was  our  minister  at  London.  Both  Web 
ster  and  Everett  by  their  scholarship,  their  eloquence, 
their  literary  ability,  and  their  world-wide  reputation, 
commanded  no  little  respect  and  admiration  in  England. 
Webster's  recent  visit  to  England  had  made  him  per 
sonally  known  to  prominent  statesmen.  Incidentally 
he  may  have  sounded  some  of  them  on  the  subjects  in 
dispute;  learned  their  point  of  view  and  opinions,  and 
very  likely  inspired  them  with  confidence  in  his  desire 
for  a  peaceful  settlement. 

Under  these  favorable  circumstances,  therefore,  the 
winter  of  1841-42  was  spent  in  getting  ready  for  the 
negotiation.  The  next  great  obstacle  to  be  got  rid  of 
was  the  public  feeling  on  the  question  in  the  State  of 

398 


THE  NORTHEAST  BOUNDARY  DISPUTE 

Maine.  The  boundary  between  Maine  and  Canada  had 
been  described  with  perfect  clearness  in  the  Treaty  of 
1783.  But  it  carried  Maine  so  close  to  the  St.  Law 
rence  River  that  England,  in  spite  of  her  assent  to  the 
treaty,  would  never  accept  that  boundary,  and  with 
characteristic  zeal  for  new  territory  claimed  a  line  much 
farther  south.  Maine  claimed  the  fulfilment  of  the 
exact  and  plain  words  of  the  treaty;  and  during  the 
last  fifty  years  the  controversy  had  always  been  con 
ducted  on  that  basis,  each  side  trying  to  convince  the 
other  of  its  full  claim.  Webster  had  made  up  his  mind 
that  the  dispute  could  never  be  settled  in  that  way; 
feeling  had  been  too  much  aroused ;  neither  side  would 
yield  its  whole  claim.  The  only  possible  method  was 
to  compromise — each  side  yield  a  little  ;  exchange  equiva 
lents,  as  the  phrase  was — and  agree  on  a  conven 
tional  line  different  from  that  of  the  treaty.  But  Maine 
had  been  struggling  with  the  subject  so  long,  had  had 
troops  on  her  frontier,  almost  a  border  warfare,  and 
was  so  convinced  of  the  perfect  clearness  of  the  words 
of  the  treaty  that  the  suggestion  of  yielding  any  of  her 
territory  roused  the  indignation  of  her  whole  people. 
No  newspapers  of  either  political  party  had  ever  dared 
take  up  such  a  suggestion;  but  Webster  found  a  way 
of  getting  at  it. 

"  The  grand  stroke  was  to  get  the  previous  consent  of 
Maine  and  Massachusetts.  Nobody  else  had  attempted  this; 
it  had  occurred  to  nobody  else;  it  was  a  movement  of  great 
delicacy,  and  of  very  doubtful  result.  But  it  was  made,  with 
how  much  skill  and  judgment  in  the  manner,  you1  must  judge; 
and  it  succeeded,  and  to  this  success  the  fortunate  result  of 
the  whole  negotiation  is  to  be  attributed."  (Works,  National 
Edition,  vol.  xvi,  p.  397.) 

The  grand  stroke,  it  was  afterwards  charged,  was 
the  corruption  of  the  party  press  in  Maine  with  the 
Secret  Service  money  of  the  national  government.  The 
consent  of  Massachusetts  was  necessary  because,  when 
in  1820  she  had  set  off  the  district  of  Maine  as  a  separate 

399 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

State,  the  controversy  was  going  on  about  the  disputed 
territory,  the  boundary  had  never  been  marked  and 
Massachusetts  still  retained  a  certain  interest  in  the  land 
in  dispute.  But  the  excited  people  of  Maine  were  the 
difficult  ones  for  Webster  to  deal  with,  and  it  seems  he 
won  them  over  by  employing  and  paying  out  of  the 
Secret  Service  fund  in  the  hands  of  the  President  a 
certain  person  who  caused  the  necessary  articles  to  be 
prepared  and  printed  in  an  independent  religious  journal 
of  wide  circulation  among  all  parties  in  the  State.1 

Maine  and  Massachusetts,  having  been  thus  won 
over,  appointed  commissioners  to  represent  their  inter 
ests  in  the  dispute  and  act  with  Webster  at  Washington. 
These  commissioners,  being  still  somewhat  inclined  to 
adhere  to  the  original  line  of  the  Treaty  of  1783  and  con 
cede  as  little  as  possible,  gave  more  or  less  trouble. 
But  they  were  necessary  parties  and  had  to  be  managed. 

In  the  summer  of  1842  Lord  Ashburton  arrived; 
and  it  was  really  an  act  of  cruelty  to  have  set  all  these 
distinguished  men  to  work  for  nearly  a  whole  summer 
in  the  torrid  heat  of  Washington  to  settle  one  of  the 
momentous  treaties  of  history.  We  have  now  learned 
better  how  to  live  ;  and  the  whole  negotiation  would, 
in  our  time,  be  transferred  to  the  seashore  of  New  Eng 
land.  The  Maine  and  Massachusetts  men  seem  to  have 
refrained  from  telling  their  sufferings.  But  Lord  Ash- 
burton,  an  elderly  man,  and  totally  unaccustomed  to 
such  a  summer  climate,  declared  himself  on  the  point 
of  throwing  up  his  commission. 


MY  DEAR  MR.  WEBSTER:  July  J 

I  must  throw  myself  on  your  compassion  to  contrive  some 
how  or  other  to  get  me  released.  I  contrive  to  crawl  about 
in  these  heats  by  day  and  pass  my  nights  in  a  sleepless  fever. 
In  short,  I  shall  positively  not  outlive  this  affair,  if  it  is  to  be 
much  longer  prolonged.  I  had  hoped  that  these  gentlemen  from 
the  northeast  would  be  equally  averse  to  this  roasting.  Could 
not  you  press  them  to  come  to  the  point,  and  say  whether  we 

1  Curtis,  Life  of  Webster,  vol.  ii,  p.  284, 
400 


MAP     OF 

NORTH  EAST  BOUNDARY  DISPUTE 

BOUNDARY  OF  TREATY  OF  1783 


THE  NORTHEAST  BOUNDARY  DISPUTE 

can  or  cannot  agree  ?  I  do  not  see  why  I  should  be  kept  wait 
ing  while  Maine  and  Massachusetts  settle  their  accounts  with 
the  General  Government. 

I  am  rather  apprehensive  that  there  is  an  inclination  some 
where  to  keep  this  negotiation  in  suspense  on  grounds  uncon 
nected  with  the  mere  difficulties  of  the  case  itself.  Pray,  save 
me  from  these  profound  politicians,  for  my  nerves  will  not 'stand 
so  much  cunning  wisdom.  (Works,  National  Edition,  vol  xvi 
P-  3iS.) 

This  is  a  good  sample  of  many  notes  that  were  ex 
changed,  In  this  intimate  way  Webster  conducted  the 
negotiation  on  the  plan  he  had  adopted  of  changing 
totally  the  method  of  procedure. 

The  treaty  had  described  the  eastern  boundary  of 
Maine  as  beginning  at  the  source  of  the  St.  Croix  River 
and  extending  north  to  the  ridge  or  watershed  which 
divides  "those  rivers  that  empty  themselves  into  the 
river  St.  Lawrence  from  those  which  fall  into  the  At 
lantic  Ocean,"  thence  southwestwardly  along  that  water 
shed   "to  the  northwesternmost  head   of   Connecticut 
River,"  in  the  northeastern  corner  of  New  Hampshire. 
When  we  look  at  a  map  of  the  country  this  boundary 
seems  plain  enough,  and  apparently  should  have  occa 
sioned  no  difficulty.    It  is  true  that  in  the  extreme  north 
ern   portion   the   watershed   would  make   a   somewhat 
crooked  wandering  line;   a   troublesome   one   to  trace 
on  the  ground  no  doubt ;  but  by  no  means  impossible.' 
It   had   been   explored   and   could   readily  be  marked. 
The^real  difficulty  seems  to  have  been  that  the  streams 
flowing  into  the  St.  Lawrence  at  that  point  being  very 
short  brought  the  American  line  close  to  that  river, 
leaving  Canada  only  a  very  narrow  strip  along  it;  so 
narrow,  indeed,  that  at  many  places  it  was  only  about 
twenty  miles  wide. 

In  other  words,  America,  from  both  a  strategical 
and  practical  point  of  view,  seemed  to  the  British  to 
occupy  a  controlling  position  on  a  long  strip  of  the  St. 
Lawrence  below  Quebec ;  would,  in  fact,  it  was  thought, 
command  the  main  entrance  to  the  British  possessions, 
26  401 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

and  almost  cut  off  Nova  Scotia  and  New  Brunswick 
from  the  rest  of  Canada.  The  direct  line  of  travel  from 
New  Brunswick  to  Quebec  was  cut  off  and  Canadian 
travellers  would  have  to  pass  through  Maine  or  go 
roundabout. 

Accordingly,  we  find  Great  Britain  insisting  that 
the  treaty  intended  something  different  from  its  words ; 
that  the  true  line  was  much  farther  south ;  and  in  order 
to  make  as  large  a  claim  as  possible  she  asserted  that 
the  northern  boundary  really  meant  by  the  treaty  must 
be  the  St.  John's  River,  which  it  will  be  observed  flows 
across  Maine  considerably  south  of  the  watershed  in 
a  great  curve,  with  the  convex  portion  of  the  curve  to 
the  northward.  This,  it  was  said,  was  a  natural  boundary 
that  would  require  no  trouble  to  mark.  But  the  im 
portant  part  in  British  eyes  was  that  it  withdrew  the 
American  boundary  some  fifty  miles  from  that  water 
shed  that  seemed  dangerously  near  the  St.  Lawrence 
below  Quebec. 

The  old  Treaty  of  1783  closing  the  Revolutionary 
War  had  been  quite  generally  regarded  in  England  as 
entirely  too  liberal.  The  statesmen  who  made  it  had 
been  violently  attacked  for  surrendering  everything  to 
the  Americans.  In  accordance  with  the  imperialistic 
policy  of  absorbing  and  keeping  everything,  even  the 
smallest  trifles,  England  had  prolonged  some  of  the 
controversies  of  the  Revolution  and  left  them  unsettled 
for  many  years.  For  some  years  she  would  not  abandon 
the  posts  and  forts  that  belonged  to  us  along  the  Great 
Lakes.  She  continued  the  right  of  searching  our  ships 
as  an  imperial  privilege  until  we  had  to  fight  the  War  of 
1812  to  get  rid  of  it.  In  the  negotiations  for  the  treaty 
which  closed  that  war,  she  had  at  first  insisted  on  con 
trolling  the  whole  south  shore  of  the  St.  Lawrence  and 
Niagara  Rivers,  as  a  military  protection  to  Canada. 
Even  after  the  treaty  she  still  claimed  the  right  of 
search,  or  right  of  visit,  as  it  was  now  politely  called, 
to  obtain  her  own  subjects  when  she  was  engaged  in  war 

402 


THE  NORTHEAST  BOUNDARY  DISPUTE 

with  any  other  nation;  and  it  was" one  of  the  questions 
Webster  had  to  settle.  The  treaty  had,  in  fact,  not 
settled  this  question  at  all.  It  had  merely  stopped  hos 
tilities  and  left  the  question  to  settle  itself. 

Her  claim  that  the  St.  John's  River  was  the  northern 
boundary  of  Maine  she  had  adhered  to  stiffly  for  fifty 
years.  It  was  a  claim  so  obviously  in  violation  of  the 
words  of  the  treaty  that  it  caused  great  irritation  in 
America,  especially  in  Maine,  where  bloodshed  on  the 
frontier  was  with  difficulty  prevented  and  every  year 
it  was  feared  that  there  would  be  some  violent  outbreak 
or  conflict  with  the  Canadians  which  would  force  both 
nations  into  a  war.  Webster  abandoned  all  the  maps, 
memoranda,  arguments  and  material  that  had  accumu 
lated  on  both  sides  as  irrelevant  for  present  purposes  and 
pressed  for  an  agreement  that  would  fix  upon  some 
conventional  line  that  would  give  neither  side  all  it 
wanted,  and  yet  give  both  enough  to  satisfy  feeling  and 
honor. 

Great  Britain's  claim  might  possibly  be  looked  upon 
as  a  petition  to  be  relieved  from  the  strict  words  of  a 
treaty  which  she  had  improvidently  signed  under  trying 
circumstances  more  than  half  a  century  before  and  which 
brought  America  dangerously  close  to  the  entrance  of 
Canada.  Our  object  was  permanent  peace  with  the 
English  race ;  we  had  ample  territory  for  our  own  pro 
tection;  it  was  not  necessary  that  we  should  be  always 
straining  for  the  last  scrap;  it  was  not  necessary  that 
we  should  occupy  a  menacing  position  on  the  St.  Law 
rence ;  we  could  afford  to  withdraw  a  little  from  the 
watershed  line  if  that  would  wipe  out  all  uneasiness  and 
cement  permanent  good  feeling.  We  would  still  re 
main  near  enough  for  military  purposes. 

These  considerations  were,  of  course,  never  put  in 
such  a  blunt  way  in  the  negotiations.  Argument  was 
avoided  as  much  as  possible ;  everything  was  suggestion 
and  pleasantry;  and  under  the  fierce  rays  of  the  dog 
star  during  that  hot  summer  in  Washington,  Webster 

403 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

kept  leading  the  commissioners  and  his  lordship  back 
and  forth  among  equivalents,  as  he  called  the  suggested 
exchanges  of  patches  of  territory  and  supposed  advan 
tages. 

It  was  finally  settled  by  taking  the  St.  John's  as  a 
boundary  part  of  the  way.  The  eastern  boundary  start 
ing  from  the  source  of  the  St.  Croix  River  and  going 
north  stopped  when  it  reached  the  curve  of  the  St. 
John's,  and  followed  up  that  river  instead  of  going 
straight  on  to  the  watershed  as  in  the  old  Treaty  of 
1783.  But  the  St.  John's  was  followed  only  about  half 
way  round  the  curve  to  the  mouth  of  the  St.  Francis 
River ;  thence  the  line  went  northwestwardly  along  the 
St.  Francis  to  Lake  Pohemgamock.  This  was  the  most 
northerly  point,  and  from  there  the  boundary  went 
southwesterly  until  it  reached  the  watershed,  which  it 
followed  to  the  source  of  the  Connecticut,  in  the  north 
eastern  corner  of  New  Hampshire. 

This  was  giving  Great  Britain  less  than  she  claimed 
of  the  disputed  territory;  but  it  was  giving  her  some 
what  more  than  was  given  to  Maine.  To  make  up  for 
this  Great  Britain  gave  Maine  the  privilege  of  sending 
lumber  and  other  products  down  the  St.  John's  River 
free  of  toll  through  the  British  possessions,  and  the 
United  States  paid  Maine  and  Massachusetts  $300,000 
for  the  territory  they  gave  up,  which  was  believed  to  be 
more  than  it  was  worth  at  that  time. 

This  having  been  accomplished  and  the  trouble 
some  State  commissioners  disposed  of,  Webster  and 
Lord  Ashburton  had  very  little  difficulty  in  settling  the 
rest  of  the  boundary.  There  was  a  strip  of  land  lying 
north  of  New  Hampshire,  Vermont  and  New  York 
which  had  always  been  supposed  to  belong  to  those 
States ;  but  when  the  more  exact  location  of  the  forty- 
fifth  parallel  of  latitude,  named  in  the  old  Treaty  of  1783, 
was  established,  this  strip  was  found  to  be  in  British 
territory.  It  was  surrendered,  however,  to  those  States 
as  one  of  the  equivalents  for  concessions  made  by  Maine  ; 

404 


THE  NORTHEAST  BOUNDARY  DISPUTE 

but  as  this  surrender  inured  to  the  benefit  of  the  three 
States  and  the  United  States  and  not  to  Maine  and 
Massachusetts,  the  money  consideration  of  $300,000  had 
to  be  paid  to  the  two  latter.  The  rest  of  the  boundary 
on  Canada,  passing  westward  to  the  St.  Lawrence  and 
through  the  Great  Lakes  Huron  and  Superior,  gave  no 
difficulty. 

The  obtaining  of  the  strip  lying  north  of  New  Hamp 
shire,  Vermont  and  New  York  was  very  important  be 
cause  it  gave  us  Rouse's  Point  at  the  northern  end  of 
Lake  Champlain,  where  the  narrowness  of  the  water 
passage  gave  a  fort  placed  on  the  point  complete  control 
of  navigation  to  and  from  Canada.  That  was  the  place 
of  real  military  importance.  If  it  were  in  control  of 
England  she  could  send  an  army  as  far  as  Albany  in 
four  days.  If  we  controlled  it  we  could  prevent  such 
a  rapid  invasion.  The  supposed  dangers  to  England  of 
the  watershed  on  the  Maine  boundary  were  largely 
imaginary.  The  country  there  was  very  mountainous 
and  unsuited  to  the  movements  of  armies.  There  were 
two  lines  of  inarch  for  an  attack  upon  Canada — one 
by  Rouse's  Point,  the  other  up  the  Kennebec  through 
Maine,  and  thence  by  the  Chaudiere  to  Quebec,  the  old 
route  that  General  Arnold  took  in  the  Revolution.  This 
last  was  unchanged  by  Webster's  treaty,  and  as  his 
treaty  gave  us  Rouse's  Point,  it  gave  us  about  all  the 
military  advantage  there  was  in  the  situation. 

As  a  military  defence  to  the  State  of  New  York 
there  was  no  situation  equal  in  importance  to  Rouse's 
Point  except  the  Narrows,  at  the  entrance  to  the  harbor 
of  New  York  City.  Webster's  obtaining  of  the  free 
navigation  of  the  St.  John's  River  through  New  Bruns 
wick  became  in  a  few  years  of  even  more  value  than  was 
at  first  supposed,  because  it  was  used  not  only  for  lum 
ber  but  for  the  transportation  to  tidewater  of  valuable 
agricultural  products  as  the  fertile  valleys  of  northern 
Maine  were  gradually  settled  by  farmers.2 

2  Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xvi,  pp.  397,  402. 
405 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

So  all  the  anxiety  of  fifty  years,  all  the  apprehen 
sion  of  war  was  settled,  and  to  most  historians  it  has 
seemed  that  America  and  England  have  been  better 
friends  ever  since.  It  was  a  noble  piece  of  work,  they 
say.  Webster  had  drawn  both  the  thunder  and  light 
ning  out  of  the  gathering  clouds.  But  "  any  sensible 
and  honest  man,"  Abolitionist  Theodore  Parker  informs 
us,  "  could  have  done  the  work;  "  and  Parker  insisted 
that  it  was  a  bad  bargain,  that  Webster  even  then  in  the 
interest  of  the  slave  power  had  basely  surrendered  terri 
tory  to  avoid  a  war  in  which  the  southern  slaves  would 
have  gained  their  liberty. 

"If  England  had  claimed  clear  down  to  the  Connecticut,  I 
think  the  southern  masters  of  the  North  would  have  given 
up  Bunker  Hill  and  Plymouth  Rock,  rather  than  risk  to  the 
chances  of  a  British  war  the  twelve  hundred  million  dollars 
invested  in  slaves.  Men  who  live  in  straw  houses  think  twice 
before  they  scatter  fire-brands  abroad.  England  knew  well 
with  whom  she  had  to  deal."  (Sermon  on  Death  of  Webster, 
p.  48.) 

In  regard  to  the  seizure  of  the  Caroline  in  the 
Niagara  River,  Webster,  in  several  letters  to  Lord  Ash- 
burton,  laid  down  the  principles  of  international  law, 
which  make  national  territory  inviolable  and  forbid 
invasion  by  an  armed  force  from  a  neighboring  nation. 
To  these  principles,  being  general  propositions,  Lord 
Ashburton  assented  in  writing.  This  was  something 
gained  for  the  future ;  but  it  did  not  settle  the  Caroline 
case,  or  constitute  an  apology  for  that  invasion;  and  it 
was  a  long  time  before  Webster  could  persuade  his 
lordship  to  close  the  correspondence  with  the  following 
sentence :  "  Looking  back  to  what  passed,  at  this  distance 
of  time,  what  is,  perhaps,  most  to  be  regretted  is,  that 
some  explanation  or  apology  for  this  occurrence  was  not 
immediately  made." 

It  took  Webster  two  days  to  persuade  his  lordship 
to  use  the  word  apology  in  addition  to  explanation. 
But  that  being  done  the  whole  sentence  could  be  diplo- 

406 


THE  NORTHEAST  BOUNDARY  DISPUTE 

matically  construed  as  an  apology  and  the  Caroline  inci 
dent  was  closed  forever. 

Great  Britain  had  claimed  the  right  to  search  our 
vessels  on  the  coast  of  Africa,  even  in  time  of  peace,  in 
order  to  see  if  they  really  carried  American  papers  and 
were  rightfully  flying  the  American  flag,  because  that 
flag  and  the  flags  of  other  nations  were  fraudulently 
used  to  cover  the  slave  trade  which  Great  Britain  was 
trying  to  suppress.  We  had  for  many  years  protested 
against  this  search  as  unlawful,  and  England  had  as 
stiffly  demanded  that  we  should  yield  it  to  her  benevolent 
endeavors  in  the  suppression  of  the  slave  trade.  She 
searched  the  vessels  of  other  nations  in  the  same  way 
on  the  African  coast;  and  she  was  gradually  regarding 
as  an  international  privilege  this  right  of  search,  or  right 
of  visit,  as  she  now  called  it,  which  we  had  fought 
the  War  of  1812  to  abolish.  The  other  nations  in  seek 
ing  to  settle  the  matter  had  obligingly  walked  straight 
into  the  trap  England  was  preparing  for  them.  France, 
Russia,  Austria  and  Prussia  had  tentatively  agreed  with 
England  to  a  quintuple  convention,  as  it  was  called, 
allowing  the  exercise  of  a  mutual  right  of  search. 
This  convention  was  not  yet  accepted  as  a  binding  treaty 
by  the  respective  governments,  but  there  was  every 
probability  that  it  would  be,  and  the  London  Times  was 
beginning  to  boast  that  the  right  of  search  would  now  be 
established  as  a  rule  of  international  law. 

It  was,  however,  all  knocked  in  the  head  by  Webster 
and  Ashburton,  who  in  a  clause  of  their  treaty  provided 
that  both  the  United  States  and  England  should  keep  a 
squadron  on  the  coast  of  Africa  to  enforce  each  its  own 
laws  against  the  slave  trade  by  mutual  co-operation. 
Each  would  attend  to  the  instances  of  the  misuse  of  its 
own  flag.  This  obviously  sensible  and  natural  arrange 
ment  cut  the  ground  from  under  England's  last  excuse 
for  restoring  her  claim  of  an  imperial  right  of  search. 
The  French  government  rejected  the  quintuple  conven 
tion  ;  and  the  right  of  search  died  from  want  of  nutrition. 

407 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

The  Creole  affair,  in  which  the  slaves  seized  the  brig 
and  took  it  into  a  British  port,  was  practically  impossible 
of  solution.  The  southerners  wanted  it  turned  into  a 
precedent  which  would  give  the  owners  of  slaves  an 
international  right  to  demand  the  extradition  of  their 
human  property.  But  this  was  out  of  the  question. 
England  wras  on  her  guard  against  it  and  would  assent 
to  nothing  which  by  any  possibility  could  be  construed 
into  a  recognition  on  her  part  of  the  relation  of  master 
and  slave.  Webster,  however,  secured  the  insertion  in 
the  treaty  of  a  clause  providing  for  the  mutual  extradi 
tion  of  persons  accused  of  certain  enumerated  crimes. 
This  was  the  beginning  of  the  modern  system  of  extra 
dition  treaties  with  various  nations. 

So  far  as  the  Creole  affair  was  concerned,  Webster 
contended  that  when  an  American  vessel  with  slaves  on 
board  was  driven  by  stress  of  weather  or  other  circum 
stances  into  a  British  port,  there  should  be  no  active 
interference  by  the  local  authorities  with  the  condition 
of  persons  or  things  on  board  as  established  by  the  law 
of  the  vessel's  country,  so  long  as  those  persons  and 
things  remained  on  board  of  the  vessel.  To  this  Lord 
Ashburton  said  that  he  had  no  authority  to  assent ;  but 
he  gave  assurance  that  under  such  circumstances  there 
should  be  no  "  officious  interference,"  no  "  further  in 
quisition  than  might  be  indispensable  to  enforce  the 
observance  of  the  municipal  law,  and  the  proper  regula 
tion  of  the  harbors  and  waters."  This  was  as  near  a 
settlement  as  they  could  come. 

On  the  question  of  impressment,  as  it  had  come  to 
be  called,  the  claim  of  Great  Britain  to  take  persons  she 
considered  her  own  subjects  out  of  our  ships  in  time  of 
war  and  visit  and  search  our  ships  for  that  purpose, 
that  was  a  privilege,  a  token  of  the  dominion  of  the  seas, 
insignia  of  imperialism  very  dear  to  the  British  heart. 
It  was  supposed  to  involve  the  great  imperial  principle 
that  once  a  subject  always  a  subject;  an  Englishman 
could  not  expatriate  himself,  could  not  voluntarily  join 
another  nationality.  The  American  doctrine  that  all 

408 


THE  NORTHEAST  BOUNDARY  DISPUTE 

men  had  the  right  of  expatriation  had  always  been 
abhorrent  to  the  English  ruling  class.  Lord  Ashbur- 
ton,  if  he  had  assented  to  the  American  principle  and 
flatly  abandoned  the  English  idea,  would  have  been 
committing  political  and  social  suicide.  At  the  same 
time  he  saw  that  the  British  claim  was  becoming  unten 
able.  Events,  especially  the  event  of  the  growth  of 
American  power,  were  becoming  too  strong  for  it.  So 
after  much  circumlocution  of  words,  stating  all  the 
difficulties  on  both  sides,  he  closed  with  the  sentence, 
"  I  have  much  reason  to  hope  that  a  satisfactory  arrange 
ment  with  respect  to  it  may  be  made,  so  as  to  set  at  rest 
all  apprehension  and  anxiety ;  and  I  will  only  further  re 
peat  the  assurance  of  the  sincere  disposition  of  my  gov 
ernment  favorably  to  consider  all  matters  having  for 
their  object  the  promoting  and  maintaining  undisturbed 
kind  and  friendly  feelings  with  the  United  States." 
That  was  all ;  but  it  was  enough ;  and  the  right  of  search 
silently  disappeared  from  international  controversies. 

So  the  troublesome  questions  were  all  disposed  of. 
It  was  a  great  piece  of  work,  and  after  the  replies  to 
Hayne  and  Calhoun  perhaps  the  best  service  of  Web 
ster's  life.  All  he  had  done  was  open  to  criticism,  if  one 
were  determined  to  be  a  critic ;  and  there  were  not  a  few 
among  the  Democrats  in  Congress.  Nothing  he  had 
done  was  positive  enough ;  everything  would  lead  to 
future  entanglements.  In  the  boundary  question  he 
had  given  up  to  Great  Britain  vast  territories  which 
were  ours  by  the  plain  words  of  the  treaty  Great  Britain 
had  signed  at  the  close  of  the  Revolution. 

Benton  attacked  the  whole  work  as  solemn  and  mys 
terious  humbuggery,  mere  bargain  and  sale,  and  an 
ignominious  and  dishonorable  surrender  of  the  highest 
interests  of  the  country.  A  "  shame  and  injury  "  and 
"  a  solemn  bamboozlement "  were  some  of  the  pic 
turesque  expressions  of  the  redoubtable  Missourian. 
Buchanan  also  denounced  it  as  a  complete  abandonment 
of  the  interests  of  the  South  and  a  complete  surrender 
to  England.  It  was,  in  fact,  easy  to  raise  a  debate 

409 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

and  discussion  on  all  the  questions ;  and  the  treaty  was 
equally  abused  and  praised  in  England.  But  both  the 
United  States  Senate  and  the  British  government 
accepted  it  and  time  has  in  the  end  been  the  strongest 
advocate  for  Webster.  Most  of  the  questions  had  been 
in  controversy,  and  dangerous  controversy  on  the  eve 
of  bloodshed,  for  half  a  century  without  any  prospect  of 
settlement  No  administration,  no  Secretary  of  State, 
no  Minister  to  England,  had  in  all  those  years  sufficient 
intellect  to  do  anything  more  than  make  the  tangle  worse 
and  bring  it  nearer  to  war.  Webster  settled  them  in  one 
summer's  negotiation,  and  whether  settled  right  or 
wrong,  they  have  remained  settled  and  have  never  since 
disturbed  us. 

Yet  to  do  this,  to  perform  this  great  service,  he  had 
to  remain  in  President  Tyler's  cabinet  and  alienate  him 
self  from  a  large  part  of  the  Whig  party.  The  denunci 
ation  of  him  for  remaining  with  Tyler,  the  calumnies 
and  tales  that  were  started  by  the  Whig  press  and  by 
Whig  leaders  are  almost  beyond  belief;  and  probably 
could  not  now  happen ;  we  have  probably  passed  beyond 
that  phase  of  our  development  in  self-government.  But 
for  Webster  it  was  part  of  the  alienation  of  New  Eng 
land  from  him,  an  alienation  which  went  on  increasing 
and  can  still  be  found  with  a  large  part  of  its  original 
vigor  in  Massachusetts. 

But  on  the  2oth  of  August,  the  day  the  Senate  passed 
the  treaty,  Webster's  mind  was  with  his  heart,  and 
that  was  far  away.  He  was  thinking  of  the  best  way 
to  harvest  the  salt  hay  at  Marshfield  and  of  the  grand 
sport  he  might  soon  have  in  building  a  new  barn.  "  I 
am  not  at  all  certain,"  he  writes  his  man  on  that  day, 
"  but  what  you  and  I  shall  make  a  barn  the  last  two 
weeks  in  September  and  the  first  two  in  October.  What 
do  you  think?  Shall  we  have  a  better  time?  " 

The  relief  came  at  last  in  September.  "  I  had  a 
glorious  month  of  leisure,"  he  says,  "on  the  seacoast, 
where  Seth  Peterson  and  I  settled  many  a  knotty  point." 
And  Lord  Ashburton  came  there  and  paid  him  a  visit. 

410 


XVI 


RETIRES    FROM     THE    CABINET LIFE    AT     MARSHFIELD 

GIRARD   WILL RELIGION THE  PRESIDENCY INGER- 

SOLL    CHARGES — PENSION    AND    DEBTS 

THE  Washington  Treaty  and  its  dependent  problems 
being  now  disposed  of,  the  Whigs  became  more  insistent 
than  ever  that  Webster  should  resign  from  President 
Tyler's  cabinet.  There  was  now,  they  said,  no  excuse 
whatsoever  for  his  remaining.  The  Massachusetts 
Whigs  held  a  convention  in  September  of  the  treaty 
year,  1842,  and  declared  a  final  separation  of  the  party 
from  President  Tyler,  and  at  the  same  time  put  forward 
the  name  of  Henry  Clay  as  candidate  for  the  Presidency. 
This  was  very  much  like  reading  Webster  out  of  the 
party  in  his  own  State;  it  was  intended,  he  said,  to 
destroy  his  political  standing  and  character;  and  a  few 
weeks  afterwards  he  arranged  for  a  great  meeting  in 
Faneuil  Hall  where  he  could  speak  his  mind. 

Public  opinion  was  so  strongly  against  him  that  his 
friends  were  uneasy  about  the  result  and  feared  he 
would  be  assailed  with  hisses  and  disrespect.  But  as 
usual  he  captured  and  captivated  his  audience.  He 
came  up  from  Marshfield  sunburned,  superbly  dressed 
and  full  of  the  vigor  of  the  sea.  He  explained  his 
position,  his  relations  to  the  great  problems  of  the 
country  in  a  broad-minded  speech  of  great  dignity,  ad 
dressed  to  a  very  intellectual,  but,  at  the  time,  narrow- 
minded  audience.  He  would  not  promise  to  resign. 
He  would  give  no  pledges,  he  would  make  no  intima 
tions  one  way  or  the  other.  He  would  remain  free 
to  act  as  duty  called,  "  I  am,  gentleman,  a  little  hard 
to  coax,  but  as  to  being  driven,  that  is  out  of  the 
question."  1 

1  Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xvi,  p.  415. 
411 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

He  was  loudly  applauded.  His  hearers  could  not 
but  admire  and  sympathize  with  such  a  man  while  he 
was  before  them.  The  speech  made  a  great  stir  in  the 
country ;  raised  a  great  dust,  as  he  put  it ;  and  won 
for  him  the  approval  of  conservatives.  But  the  mass 
of  the  party  retained  their  narrow  view  as  to  what  he 
should  do ;  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  Webster  received 
a  very  serious  political  injury  at  this  time  so  far  as 
concerned  any  chances  he  may  have  had  for  a  future 
nomination  for  the  Presidency.  His  party  in  his  own 
State  had  repudiated  him  and  had  gone  over  to  Henry 
Clay.  He  foresaw  this  and  was  independent  and  indif 
ferent  as  usual. 

"  The  Whigs  denounce  me,  of  course,"  he  wrote  to  his  son, 
"but  I  cannot  help  it.  I  was  determined  to  do  the  President 
justice  and  myself  justice;  and  as  for  the  rest  I  must  be  will 
ing,  as  I  am,  to  abide  consequences. 

"  The  sober  men,  men  of  business,  men  of  independence, 
and  of  candor,  all  like  it,  this  way.  Mr.  Clay's  friends  and 
the  scheming  partisans  are  very  angry."  (Works,  National 
Edition,  vol.  xvi,  p.  384.) 

It  was  these  sober  men,  these  business  men,  the 
merchants,  bankers,  capitalists  and  conservatives,  that 
were  his  real  constituency.  It  was  not  in  his  nature 
to  go  beyond  them  as  Jackson  did.  To  them  all  his 
great  intellectual  speeches  on  banking,  finance,  tariff 
and  the  Constitution  were  addressed.  About  the  only 
time  he  ever  went  beyond  them  was  when  he  aroused 
union  sentiment  as  in  the  reply  to  Hayne.  Then  he 
spoke  to  the  nation. 

Looking  back  from  the  broader  point  of  view  of  the 
country's  best  interests,  his  independence,  or  obstinacy, 
was  of  great  advantage.  It  was  very  important  that  a 
man  of  his  talents  and  conservatism  should  be  in  the 
administrative  part  of  the  government.  This  had  been 
proved  in  the  Washington  treaty ;  and  there  were  other 
important  diplomatic  and  international  questions  before 
the  government,  like  the  Oregon  boundary  and  the  first 
mission  to  China,  to  mention  no  others.  Webster  had 

412 


RETIRES  FROM  THE  CABINET 

the  natural  pride  of  a  man  in  wishing  to  finish  his  work. 
He  was  introducing  for  the  handling  of  these  problems 
new  methods  which  would  be  of  infinite  value  as  prece 
dents  and  guides  for  the  future.  For  many  years  very 
inferior  third  rate  men  had  been  in  the  executive  offices, 
as  was  shown  by  the  long  years  of  failure  to  settle  the 
disputes  with  England.  The  quality  of  our  executive 
work  and  accomplishment  had  not  kept  pace  with  the 
methods  of  other  countries. 

And  what  was  the  cause  of  all  the  trouble?  Why 
did  the  Whigs  so  detest  Tyler?  Why  did  they  think 
that  Webster's  presence  in  his  cabinet  for  any  reason 
was  such  pollution  to  Webster  that  he  was  no  longer 
fit  to  be  a  Whig?  It  was  simply  and  solely  the  ever 
lasting  old  stupidity  of  establishing  a  national  bank. 
Tyler,  two  or  three  years  before,  had  vetoed  their  two 
bank  bills.  Nothing  but  the  grave  ever  cured  a  good 
old  time  Whig  of  the  bank  stupidity.  The  highest  intel 
lects  of  New  England,  literary  characters  of  Boston, 
thrifty  citizens,  keen  traders,  were  all  afflicted  with 
the  notion  that  there  could  be  only  one  American  finan 
cial  method  and  that  must  be  a  national  bank.  This 
affliction  narrowed  and  warped  their  minds  until  they 
could  see  nothing  else. 

Webster  himself  still  held  to  the  delusion,  but  had 
become  more  moderate  about  it.  He  had  long  been 
convinced  that  a  national  bank  of  the  old  type  was  out 
of  the  question  and  could  not  by  any  possibility  be  estab 
lished.  He  favored  Tyler's  Exchequer  plan  which,  while 
not  exactly  a  bank,  was  a  method  of  issuing  currency 
which  would  be  o>f  equal  value  throughout  the  Union. 
But  the  Whigs,  though  clamoring  for  a  bank,  would 
not  accept  anybody's-  plan  for  one,  and  in  that  session 
of  Congress  of  1842-43  would  not  form  one  of  their 
own.  They  would  not  accept  the  Exchequer  plan  and 
would  not  push  their  own  plan,  and  yet  were  denouncing* 
Webster  and  Tyler  as  the  enemies  of  their  plan.  They 
were  demoralized  again. 

4i3 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

Webster  foretold  their  speedy  downfall ;  and  he  was 
right  in  not  sacrificing  his  high  reputation  to  their  nar 
row  views.  He  took  infinite  comfort  in  the  support  of  his 
;  old  constituency,  the  conservatives  of  the  country.  In 
declining  an  invitation  to  a  public  dinner  in  New  York 
signed  by  a  host  of  the  solid  men  of  that  town  he. 
commented  on  those  signatures  as  of  the  highest  value 
to  him.  "  They  teach  me  that  no  considerations  should 
be  allowed  to  draw  us  aside  from  the  course  of  public 
duty,  and  that  upright  intention,  impartiality,  indepen 
dent  purpose  and  fidelity  to  our  common  country  will 
find  their  reward." 

In  May,  1843,  ne  found  that  there  was  no  more 
important  work  for  him  to  do  as  Secretary  of  State,  and 
that  President  Tyler,  abandoned  by  the  Whigs,  was 
very  naturally  seeking  support  for  his  administration 
from  the  Democrats.  Webster  had  no  desire  to  connect 
himself  with  the  Democratic  party  and  he  accordingly 
resigned  the  office  of  Secretary  of  State  and  retired  to 
private  life  and  Marshfield. 

He  was  again  overwhelmed  with  debt.  In  1836, 
when  he  had  tried  to  resign^from  public  life  and  devote 
himself  to  his  profession  and  money-making,  he  had 
been  prevented  by  friends  who  persuaded  him  to  with 
draw  his  resignation  and  who  helped  him  to  settle  his 
difficulties  so  that  he  owed  no  money  to  anyone.  As 
he  was  not  to  return  to  his  profession  he  laid  out  all 
the  money  he  had  or  could  get  in  western  lands,  expect 
ing,  it  seems,  a  great  rise  in  value.  But  in  company 
with  many  others  he  was  deeply  disappointed. 

His  expenses  were  enormous.  He  was  obliged  to 
live  well  in  Washington.  He  kept  up  two  experimental 
and  luxurious  farms — Marshfield  and  The  Elms — at 
both  of  which,  especially  Marshfield,  he  entertained 
lavishly.  His  official  salary  and  incidental  law  practice 
in  the  Supreme  Court  went  but  a  small  way  towards 
meeting  this  outlay. 


414 


LIFE  AT  MARSHFIELD 

He  had  given  up  his  handsome  old-fashioned  house 
on  Summer  Street  in  Boston.  "  Marshfield  and  the  sea, 
the  sea  "  was  his  only  home.  "  To  hear  from  Marsh- 
field,"  he  writes  in  1845,  "  is  almost  the  only  pleasure 
I  expect  to  enjoy  at  Washington."  Into  the  house  at 
Marshfield  he  emptied  the  contents,  the  furniture,  the 
pictures,  the  curios,  and  the  books  of  his  Boston  and 
Washington  homes.  His  library  was  supposed  to  be 
worth  $40,000,  not  including  his  law  books,  some  four 
or  five  thousand,  which  were  in  his  office  in  Boston, 
which  he  always  retained  and  left  in  charge  of  a  partner. 
He  was  an  -ardent  collector  of  books  on  natural  history 
and  had  these  with  his  works  on  agriculture  in  his  office 
in  the  garden.2  New  rooms  and  wings  had  been  added 
to  the  Marshfield  house,  among  them  a  new  and  large 
kitchen  where  Monica  could  reign  supreme.  New  tracts 
were  added  to  the  land,  which  now  amounted  to  1800 
acres.  With  his  wife  and  children,  his  herds  of  superb 
cattle,  his  boatman  Peterson,  and  his  favorite  farming 
hands  gathered  round  him,  and  hosts  of  friends  to  fill 
the  house  and  overflow  into  lodgings  in  the  neighbor 
hood,  these  last  ten  years  of  his  life  became  the  greatest 
days  at  Marshfield. 

He  continued  to  breed  fine  specimens  of  oxen,  the 
animals  he  liked  best  of  all.  He  seemed  to  glory  in 
their  magnificent  patient  strength;  and  the  power  of 
the  great  beasts  taking  the  large  plough  through  the 
land  delighted  his  imagination.  He  would  sometimes 
yoke  them  himself  and  hold  the  plough  with  the  strength 
and  skill  of  a  ..Veteran  farmer.  It  was  one  of  his  favorite 
amusements. 

He  rose  at  three  or  four  o'clock  in  the  morning  in 
summer,  went  about  feeding  and  petting  his  animals, 
attended  to  his  letters  and  business  papers  before  break 
fast;  and  after  this,  which  for  most  people  would  be  a 

3  Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xvi,  p.  429 ;  Lanman,  Private 
Life  of  Webster,  pp.  75,  87. 

415 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

day's  labor,  he  would  devote  the  remainder  of  the  time 
to  entertaining  visitors,  or  excursions  on  land  or  water.3 

Even  in  winter  at  Marshfield  he  rose  at  four;  and 
we  have  a  letter  written  by  him  to  Mr.  Blatchford  on  the 
7th  of  December,  1847,  at  fiye  in  tne  morning,  describ 
ing  with  boyish  enthusiasm  the  brilliancy  of  the  stars, 
the  deep  booming  of  the  ocean,  and  the  pleasure  he 
expected  in  an  hour  from  the  sunrise. 

In  Washington  people  who*  called  on  him  at  10 
o'clock  in  the  morning  were  often  surprised  to  find  him 
apparently  unoccupied  and  ready  to  converse  with  them ; 
and  this,  no  doubt,  added  tQ  his  deliberate  manner,  ab 
sence  of  nervousness,  and  never  bragging  about  work, 
started  the  charge  that  he  was  an  indolent  if  not  a  lazy 
man.  The  truth  was  that  at  10  o'clock  in  the  morning 
Webster  had  been  working  for  four  or  five  hours.  He 
had  finished  his  correspondence  and  most  pressing  busi 
ness  of  the  day,  "  had  broken  the  neck  of  the  day's 
work,"  as  Sir  Walter  Scott,  another  early  riser,  used  to 
say,  and  wras  quite  ready  to  talk  on  other  subjects  before 
he  went  into  court  or  Senate  or  took  up  the  pursuits  of 
the  afternoon.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  was  a  most 
prodigious  worker ;  he  could  not  otherwise  have  accom 
plished  what  he  did.  His  investigations  and  studies 
outside  of  his  legal  and  public  duties  were  enormous; 
and  he  probably  did  more  hard  work  and  was  more  capa 
ble  of  undergoing  it  down  into  old  age  than  any  other 
public,  professional  or  business  man  of  the  country.4 

Learning,  what  for  some  strange  reason  every  human 
being  has  to  learn  for  himself  by  experience,  the  danger 
to  health  of  long  sitting  at  a  desk,  he  dictated  a  large 
part  of  his  correspondence  and  important  papers  while 
walking  up  and  down  the  room ;  and  there  is  a  letter  of 
his  recommending  this  method  to  Henry  Clay,  whose 
health  was  suffering  from  sedentary  pursuits. 

s  Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xvi,  p.  429;  Lanman,  Pri 
vate  Life  of  Webster,  pp.  75,  87. 

4  Lyman's  Memorials,  vol.  ii,  p.  95. 
416 


LIFE  AT  MARSHFIELD 

"The  amount  of  business,"  says  his  private  secretary, 
"that  he  sometimes  transacted  during  a  single  morning  may 
be  guessed  at  when  it  is  mentioned  that  he  not  infrequently 
kept  two  persons  employed  writing  at  his  dictation  at  the 
same  time;  for  as  he  usually  walked  the  floor  on  such  occa 
sions,  he  would  give  his  chief  clerk  a  sentence  in  one  room  to 
be  incorporated  in  a  diplomatic  paper,  and,  marching  to  the 
room  occupied  by  his  private  secretary,  give  him  the  skeleton, 
or  perhaps  the  very  language,  of  a  private  note  or  letter."' 
(Lanman,  Private  Life  of  Webster,  p.  84.) 

He  was  all  his  life  an  omnivorous  reader,  reading 
everything,  old  and  new,  and  continually  buying  books 
in  a  way  that  reminded  every  one  of  what  they  had 
heard  about  Napoleon.  Lanman  speaks  of  buying  for 
him  fifty  books  to  take  on  one  of  his  autumn  trips  to 
the  Elms  Farm.  He  would  absorb  all  that  was  valuable 
in  a ^ book  with  great  rapidity.  He  usually  began  by 
reading  the  index,  next  the  table  of  contents  and  chapter 
headings,  and  then  would  run  rapidly  through  the  text, 
taking  in  the  substance  of  many  of  the  pages  by  a  rapid 
glance  as  Macaulay  used  to  do.  A  book  that  could 
compel  him  to  go  slow  was  a  good  one.  Probably  his 
reading  of  the  index  and  chapter  headings  enabled  his 
quick  mind  to  forestall  a  great  deal  that  the  author 
would  say  and  he  examined  the  text  merely  to  pick 
out  what  was  different  from  what  he  had  expected. 

Very  few  in  any  generation  have  the  strength  to 
endure  those  early  morning  mental  labors  which  he 
added  to  the  usual  human  day's  work.  His  power  to 
resist  extreme  fatigue  and  react  from  it  by  a  slight  rest 
^sjmu^sjuaL  Tie  neveTseems  to  have 'needed  more  than 
six  hours'  sleep,  and  this  physical  capacity,  kept  up  until 
he  was  nearly  seventy  years  old,  reminds  us  again  in  a 
very  striking  way  of  his  great  contemporary  Napoleon. 
The  two  men  seem  to  have  been  superhuman  freaks  of 
nature  occurring  in  the  same  age,  one  in  the  Anglo- 
Saxon,  the  other  in  the  Latin  race. 

Sir  Walter  Scott  and  Webster  were  very  much  alike 
in  the  largeness  of  their  ability  and  point  of  view ;  per- 
27  417 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

haps  because  they  were  the  product  of  the  same  con 
ditions  in  that  age  and  its  peculiar  opportunities  in  litera 
ture,  new  ideas  and  methods  of  country  life.  Both  were 
handsome  and  of  fine  physique  as  well  as  capable  of 
unusual  intellectual  labor  and  a  multiplicity  of  interests 
and  enjoyments  beyond  most  of  mankind.  Both  were 
devoted  to  nature  and  country  life,  sport  and  animals, 
antiquities  and  literature.  They  had  the  same  insatiable 
craving  for  owning  vast  acreage  of  land;  and  in  all 
these  pursuits  they  had  the  same  facility  for  squander 
ing  money  and  getting  into  debt. 

It  seems  to  have  required  no  great  resolution  or 
effort  for  Webster  to  work  so  early  in  the  morning. 
He  loved  it.  He  had  an  uncontrollable  passion  for 
watching  the  stars  disappear  out  of  the  sky;  and  perhaps 
the  most  beautiful  passage  in  all  his  writings  is  his  often 
quoted  letter  to  Mrs.  Page  about  the  morning.  Those 
early  hours  were  intoxication  to  him.  His  powerful 
imagination  revelled  in  them.  He  drew  together  all 
the  beautiful  things  that  had  ever  been  written  about 
the  morning,  from  King  David,  from  Milton,  from 
Shakespeare,  he  knew  them  all,  he  could  repeat  them  all 
at  any  moment,  and  he  applied  them  after  his  practical 
manner  as  he  handed  the  ears  of  corn  to  his  mighty 
oxen  and  roamed  through  the  dew-laden  grass.  He  was 
living  the  ideals  he  had  found  in  literature. 

"  It  is  morning — and  a  morning  sweet,  and  fresh,  and  de 
lightful.  Everybody  knows  the  morning,  in  its  metaphorical 
sense,  applied  to  so  many  objects  and  on  so  many  occasions. 
The  health,  strength,  and  beauty  of  early  years  lead  us  to  call 
that  period  the  '  morning  of  life.'  Of  a  lovely  young  woman 
we  say,  she  is  'bright  as  the  morning,'  and  no  one  doubts  why 
Lucifer  is  called  '  son  of  the  morning.'  But  the  morning  itself, 
few  people,  inhabitants  of  cities,  know  anything  about.  Among 
all  our  good  people  of  Boston,  not  one  in  a  thousand  sees  the 
sun  rise  once  a  year.  They  know  nothing  of  the  morning. 
Their  idea  of  it  is,  that  it  is  that  part  of  the  day  which  comes 
along  after  a  cup  of  coffee  and  a  beefsteak,  or  a  piece  of 
toast.  With  them,  morning  is  not  a  new  issuing  of  light;  a 
new  bursting  forth  of  the  sun,  a  new  waking-up  of  all  that 

418 


LIFE  AT  MARSHFIELD 

has  life  from  a  sort  of  temporary  death,  to  behold  again  the 
works  of  God,  the  heavens  and  the  earth;  it  is  only  a  part  of 
the  domestic  day,  belonging  to  breakfast,  the  reading  the  news 
papers,  answering  notes,  sending  the  children  to  school  and 
giving  orders  for  dinner.  The  first  faint  streak  of  light  the 
earliest  purpling  of  the  east,  which  the  lark  springs  up  to  greet 
and  the  deeper  and  deeper  coloring  into  orange  and  red,  till 
at  length  the  glorious  sun  is  seen,  regent  of  day'— this  thev 
never  enjoy,  for  this  they  never  see. 

"Beautiful  descriptions  of  the  'morning'  abound  in  all 
languages,  but  they  are  the  strongest,  perhaps,  in  those  of  the 
bast,  where  the  sun  is  so  often  an  object  of  worship  Kins 
David  speaks  of  taking  to  himself  the  'wings  of  the  morning* 
This  is  highly  poetical  and  beautiful.  The  '  wings  of  the  morn 
ing  are  the  beams  of  the  rising  sun.  Rays  of  light  are  wings 
t  is  thus  said  that  the  Sun  of  Righteousness  shall  arise  '  with 
healing  in  His  wings;'  a  rising  sun  which  shall  scatter  light, 
and  health,  and  joy,  throughout  the  universe.  Milton  has  fine 
descriptions  of  morning,  but  not  so  many  as  Shakespeare  from 
whose  writings  pages  of  the  most  beautiful  imagery,  all  founded 
on  the  glory  of  the  morning,  might  be  filled. 

I  never  thought  that  Adam  had  much  advantage  of  us 
from  having  seen  the  world  while  it  was  new.  The  manifesta 
tions  of  the  power  of  God,  like  His  mercies,  are  'new  every 
morning,'  and  'fresh  every  evening.'  We  see  as  fine  risings 
of  the  sun  as  ever  Adam  saw,  and  its  risings  are  as  much 
a  miracle  now  as  they  were  in  his  day,  and  I  think  a  good  deal 
more,  because  it  is  now  a  part  of  the  miracle  that  for  thousands 
and  thousands  of  years  he  has  come  to  his  appointed  time, 
without  the  variation  of  a  millionth  part  of  a  second  Adam 
could  not  tell  how  this  might  be. 

"I  know  the  morning;  I  am  acquainted  with  it,  and  I 
love  it,  fresh  and  sweet  as  it  is,  a  daily  new  creation,  breaking 
forth,  and  calling  all  that  have  life,  and  breath,  and  being,  to 
new  adoration,  new  enjoyments,  and  new  gratitude."  (Private 
Correspondence,  vol.  ii,  p.  240.) 

Then  there  were  those  days  when  he  indulged  an 
other  ideal.  He  and  Peterson,  not  exactly  as  employer 
and  employed,  but  more  as  shipmates,  would  take  the 
sail  boat  in  the  early  hours  and  the  rising  sun  would 
meet  them  far  out  at  sea,  where  they  would  spend  the 
whole  day  fishing,  dreaming  and  pondering  on  the  vast 
prospect  of  the  ocean,  to  return  long  after  sunset  deep- 
laden  with  their  spoil. 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

He  had  a  long  holiday  and  outing  that  summer  of 
1843  after  retiring  from  the  office  of  Secretary  of  State. 
But  he  had  to  interrupt  it  early  in  June  to  prepare 
a  second  Bunker  Hill  address  to  celebrate  the  comple 
tion  of  the  monument,  the  beginning  of  which  he  had 
celebrated  with  his  famous  oration  seventeen  years  be 
fore.  The  second  one  was  less  eloquent  and  striking. 
It  touched  on  union  sentiment;  and  for  the  rest  dis 
cussed  the  effect  of  the  Revolution  and  the  benefits  of 
Anglo-Saxon  rule  in  America.  Senator  Hoar  was  pres 
ent  as  a  boy  among  the  Harvard  students.  Emerson, 
the  philosopher,  was  also  there,  studied  the  orator  in 
transcendental  fashion  and  reported  to  the  world : 

"His  countenance,  his  figure,  his  manners  were  all  in  so 
grand  a  style  that  he  was  without  effort  as  superior  to  his  emi 
nent  rivals  as  they  were  to  the  humblest.  He  alone  of  all 
men  did  not  disappoint  the  eye  and  the  ear,  but  was  a  fit  figure 
in  the  landscape.  He  knew  well  that  a  little  more  or  less 
of  rhetoric  signified  nothing ;  he  was  only  to  say  plain  and 
equal  things — grand  things  if  he  had  them ;  and  if  he  had  them 
not,  only  to  abstain  from  saying  unfit  things — and  the  whole 
occasion  was  answered  by  his  presence."  (Hoar,  "  Autobi 
ography  of  Seventy  Years,"  vol.  i,  pp.  135,  136.) 

Webster  now  returned  to  practising  law  in  winter, 
more  particularly  in  the  Supreme  Court  at  Washington, 
and  soon  was  making,  he  tells  us,  about  fifteen  thousand 
a  year.5  But  this  was  a  trifle  for  his  expensive  life, 
which  required  apparently  more  like  thirty  or  forty 
thousand;  and  if  he  had  had  that  much  he  would,  no 
doubt,  have  spent  it  all  and  involved  himself  for  as  much 
more. 

He  was  sixty-two  years  old,  a  grim  and  war-worn 
veteran  in  the  contests  of  politics  and  the  bar.  But  he 
was  still  the  same  genial  Webster  who  used  to  write 
verses  and  humorous  letters  for  his  classmates  and  the 
girls  in  New  Hampshire. 

6  Curtis,  vol.  ii,  p.  239. 

420 


GIRARD  WILL 

MONDAY  MORNING,  March  4,  1844. 
My  DEAR  JOSEPHINE: 

I  fear  you  got  a  wetting  last  evening,  as  it  rained  fast 
soon  after  you  left  our  door;  and  I  avail  myself  of  the  return 
of  your  bonnet  to  express  the  wish  that  you  are  well  this 
morning,  and  without  cold. 

I  have  demanded  parlance  with  your  bonnet ;  have  asked  it 
how  many  tender  looks  it  has  noticed  to  be  directed  under  it; 
what  soft  words  it  has  heard,  close  to  its  side;  in  what  in 
stances  an  air  of  triumph  has  caused  it  to  be  tossed;  and 
whether,  ever,  and  when,  it  has  quivered  from  trembling  emo 
tions  proceeding  from  below.  But  it  has  proved  itself  a  faith 
ful  keeper  of  secrets,  and  would  answer  none  of  my  questions. 
It  only  remained  for  me  to  attempt  to  surprise  it  into  confes 
sion  by  pronouncing  sundry  names  one  after  another.  It  seemed 
quite  unmoved  by  most  of  these,  but  at  the  apparently  unex 
pected  mention  of  one,  I  thought  its  ribbands  decidedly  flut 
tered  !  I  gave  it  my  parting  good  wishes,  hoping  that  it  might 
never  cover  an  aching  head,  and  that  the  eyes  which  it  pro 
tects  from  the  rays  of  the  sun  may  know  no  tears  but  of  joy 
and  affection.  (Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xvi,  p.  425.) 

It  was  at  this  time  in  the  year  1844  that  he  argued 
the  Girard  will  case,  a  famous  controversy  in  its  day. 
Girard  had  made  what  for  that'time  was  an  enormous 
fortune  in.  the  ship-owning  and  commercial  interests  of 
Philadelphia.  He  was  our  first  conspicuously  rich  man, 
the  first  American  millionaire.  A  part  of  his  fortune 
he  left  to  establish  an  orphan  college  still  existing  in 
Philadelphia.  He  provided  that  while  the  pupils  should 
be  taught  the  "  purest  principles  of  morality,"  no  relig 
ion  of  any  form  should  be  taught  within  its  walls,  "  no 
ecclesiastic,  missionary  or  minister  of  any  sect  what 
ever  "  should  have  any  station  or  duty  in  the  college 
or  even  be  admitted  within  the  premises  as  a  visitor. 
Webster  was  retained  to  argue  the  case  in  the  Supreme 
Court  at  Washington  and  show  that  the  gift  was  not  a 
legal  charity  because  derogatory  to  the  Christian  relig 
ion,  an  attack  upon  "  all  the  laws  of  God  and  all  the 
usages  of  Christian  man,"  "  mere  sheer,  low,  ribald, 
vulgar  deism  and  infidelity/'  for  the  ruin  and  degrada 
tion  of  unfortunate  orphans.  He  spoke  for  three  days 

421 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

on  law,  religion  and  the  history  of  Christianity,  and  a 
large  part  of  what  he  said  was  published,  widely  circu 
lated,  and  read  with  great  satisfaction  by  religious 
people  all  over  the  country.  But  the  court  upheld  the 
will,  the  orphan  college  was  established  in  the  manner 
provided  by  its  founder,  and  is  still  a  flourishing  insti 
tution. 

Crowds  of  people  came  to  the  court  each  day  to  hear 
him  speak  and  could  hardly  be  restrained  from  applaud 
ing  the  impassioned  passages  in  defence  of  Christianity. 
Judge  Story,  who  wrote  the  opinion  of  the  court,  was 
unconvinced  by  the  speech,  and  afterwards  said  in  a 
letter  that  Webster  had  done  all  he  could  for  his  side, 
but  that  it  was  "  altogether  an  address  to  the  prejudices 
of  the  clergy."  6 

It  may  be  said  here  that  Webster  had,  of  course, 
been  brought  up  in  the  orthodox  belief,  as  it  was  called, 
or  Congregationalism  of  New  England,  the  old  Puritan 
faith.  He  seems  to  have  gone  to  churches  of  that  sort 
near  Marshfield  at  times ;  but  Lanman,  his  secretary, 
says  that  he  was  an  Episcopalian  and  preferred  that 
form,  though  he  was  liberal  in  listening  to  other  preach 
ing.  Parton,  a  Unitarian  and  Abolitionist,  says  sneer- 
ingly  that  he  became  an  Episcopalian  because  it  was  a 
genteel  faith,  and  assures  us 

"  He  had  no  religion.  .  .  .  What  he  called  his  religion 
had  no  effect  whatever  upon  the  conduct  of  his  life ;  it  made  him 
go  to  church,  talk  piously,  puff  the  clergy  and  patronize  Provi 
dence — no  more."  (Famous  Americans,  p.  112.) 

This  means  that  a  man  who  was  generally  believed 
to  have  overindulged  in  drinking  and  eating  and  some 
other  good  things  of  life,  and  differed  from  Mr.  Parton 
in  politics,  had  better  have  had  not  quite  so  much  to  say 
about  religion.  Mr.  Parton,  however,  should  have  re 
membered  that  religion  and  the  churches  are  for  the 
sinners  as  much  as  for  the  righteous. 

'  Life  of  Story  by  his  Son,  vol.  ii,  p.  469. 
422 


RELIGION 

Theodore  Parker  seems  to  come  closer  to  Webster's 
religion  when  he  says  that  he  went  to  the  Episcopal 
Church  in  Washington,  the  Unitarian  in  Boston,  and  to 
churches  generally  without  regard  to  the  theology  of  the 
minister.  How  could  he  have  been  Webster  and  have 
done  otherwise?  To  conceive  of  him  confined  to  any 
one  division  of  Christianity  is  impossible.  He  probably 
liked  the  Episcopal  Church  because  of  the  richness, 
beauty  and  good  taste  of  its  Book  of  Common  Prayer ; 
and  here  and  there  in  his  speeches  he  uses  phrases  from 
it  with  evident  relish  of  their  forceful  meaning. 

Religion  was  to  him  poetry.  It  appealed  to  his 
powerful  emotions.  He  loved  it  for  its  scholarship,  its 
learning,  its  history.  He  loved  it  as  he  loved  geology 
and  astronomy.  He  loved  its  grandeur  and  sublimity, 
its  lofty  morality  and  unselfishness,  the  primitive 
Homeric  poetry  of  the  Old  Testament  and  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount,  of  which  he  said  in  his  last  days  it 
"  cannot  be  a  merely  human  production."  That  is  to 
say,  he  loved  all  that  side  of  it,  and  for  the  superstition, 
the  cunning,  the  priest-craft,  the  ritual  and  the  dogma 
he  cared  not  one  straw,  although  he  would  show  most 
kindly  consideration  for  anyone  who  was  addicted  to 
that  phase. 

One  of  his  greatest  pleasures  was  to  read  the  Old 
Testament  aloud  to  his  friends  at  Marshfield  as  his 
father  had  read  it  to  him  as  a  boy.  But  he  had  gone 
far  beyond  his  father  and  studied  all  that  had  been 
written  on  the  origin  and  history  o>f  the  ancient  writ 
ings.  He  had  even  studied  the  geology  of  Palestine  and 
the  changes  supposed  to  have  taken  place  in  the  region 
of  the  Euphrates.  He  had  read  about  Confucius  and 
the  Indian  and  early  Persian  lawgivers  and  sages,  and 
compared  their  writings  with  the  writings  of  the  He 
brews.  No  one,  it  used  to  be  said,  could  listen  to  his 
readings  and  comments  without  believing  in  the  inspira 
tion  of  the  Scriptures  or  in  his. 

His  views  were,  however,  largely  rationalistic.  He 
423 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

wanted  to  write  a  book  on  Christianity,  to  leave  a  dec 
laration  of  his  belief  in  it.  He  would  avoid,  he  said, 
doctrinal  distinctions  about  the  Saviour,  "  but  I  wish 
to  express  my  belief  in  His  divine  mission."  He  looked 
upon  the  Old  Testament  as  a  most  interesting  develop 
ment  of  ancient  law ;  but  principally  as  a  collection  of 
poems  of  vast  antiquity,  handed  down  by  tradition  and 
of  a  primitiveness  and  beauty  far  excelling  Homer. 
He  was  quite  indignant  with  anyone  who  could  not  see 
this.  "  I  have  met  with  men  in  my  time,"  he  said, 
"  accounted  learned  scholars — who  knew  Homer  by 
heart,  recited  Pindar,  were  at  home  with  ^Eschylus,  and 
petted  Horace — who  could  not  understand  Isaiah,  Moses 
or  the  Royal  Poet  ...  so  far  superior  in  original 
force,  sublimity,  and  truth  to  nature."  7  It  was  to  bring 
out  this  wonderful  poetry,  the  tenderness  and  intellect 
of  David,  the  sublimity  of  Isaiah,  the  dignity  and  im 
agery  of  Job,  that  most  of  his  readings  and  comments 
were  directed.  -He  would  explain  at  length  the  weak 
ness  of  the  Iliad  compared  with  the  powerful  imagery, 
the  superb  passion  and  the  sublime  thought  of  those 
ancient  children  of  the  desert  that  had  found  in  him  a 
kindred  imagination. 

He,  of  course,  failed  to  attain  the  Whig  nomination 
for  the  Presidency  in  1844.  His  biographers  have  be 
wailed  this  loss  both  to  himself  and  the  country,  and 
have  condemned  the  narrowness  and  shortsightedness 
of  the  Whigs.  But  when  we  reflect  that  Webster's 
persistence  in  remaining  so  long  in  Tyler's  cabinet  had 
brought  on  the  discussion  whether  he  was  a  Whig  at  all, 
we  need  not  be  surprised  at  the  result.  With  fully 
half  his  party  declaring  that  he  was  not  a  Whig,  or 
that  he  was  a  renegade  Whig,  how  was  it  possible  for 
him  to  attain  the  nomination? 

When  Tyler  became  President,  Webster  had  before 
him  in  the  Department  of  State  half  a  dozen  momen 
tous  questions,  questions  that  had  been  accumulating 

7  Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xiii,  pp.  571,  592. 
424 


Courtesy  of  the  S.  S.  McClure  Company 

WEBSTER    IN     1845.      AGE    63 


THE  PRESIDENCY 

for  half  a  century.  He  was  conscious  of  the  ability 
and  experience  to  deal  with  them,  to  succeed  where  all 
others  had  failed,  to  perform  a  great  public  service,  and 
reap  a  corresponding  immortal  reputation.  He  was 
unquestionably  right  in  accepting  this  opportunity,  and 
allowing  half  his  party  to  howl  about  the  renegade  while 
the  other  half  wrote  him  letters  of  admiration,  congratu 
lation  and  support,  letters  which  his  literary  executor, 
finding  among  his  papers,  wonders  why  they  did  not  give 
him  the  Presidency  or  at  least  the  nomination. 

But  when  we  choose  between  two  courses  in  this 
world,  we  usually  can  enjoy  the  benefits  of  only  one 
of  them.  The  Presidency  is  not  usually  given  as  a 
reward,  least  of  all  as  a  reward  for  unusual  independence 
of  thought  or  action.  It  has  generally  been  regarded 
as  standing  by  itself,  governed  by  considerations  pecu 
liarly  its  own ;  and  a  man  with  a  long  career  of  political 
experiences  and  innumerable  and  varied  opinions  on  all 
sorts  of  subjects  is  usually  too  vulnerable  to  be  avail 
able.  Henry  Clay,  who  received  the  Whig  nomination 
on  this  occasion,  though  less  independent  than  Webster, 
was  rather  too  much  of  the  sort  of  man  just  described 
to  be  a  successful  candidate.  Webster  took  the  stump 
for  him  and  made  a  number  of  speeches  during  the 
summer  and  autumn;  but  Clay  was  easily  defeated  by 
the  Democratic  candidate  Polk. 

Webster's  leave  ofjibsence  from  public  life  lasted 
only  about  two  years.  He  returned  again  to  Congress 

in  March,  1845,  as  Senator from  Massachusetts,  just 

after  the  annexation  of  Texas  had  been  accomplished 
by  northern  as  well  as  by  southern  votes  and  greater 
territory  and  larger  representation  in  Congress  given  to 
the  slave-holders. 

The  most  important  subject  which  first  occupied  his 
attention  in  the  Senate  was  the  Oregon  boundary,  our 
northwest  boundary  on  the  British  possessions,  which 
had  not  been  settled  by  the  Treaty  of  Washington. 
There  was  a  strong  and  even  violent  feeling  in  the 

425 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

country,  shared  principally  by  the  Democratic  party, 
that  the  boundary  should  be  the  line  of  latitude  54°  40', 
which  would  have  taken  our  domain  some  three  hun 
dred  miles  farther  north,  and  cut  off  British  America 
from  the  port  of  Vancouver  and  all  access  to  the  waters 
of  Puget  Sound  on  the  Pacific  Ocean.  "  Fifty-four 
forty  or  Fight,"  became  the  party  cry  of  the  Democrats, 
while  Webster  inclined  to  a  milder  course,  deprecated 
war  and  advocated  the  line  49°  north  latitude,  which  is 
now  the  boundary. 

In  Faneuil  Hall  he  made  a  strong  speech  in  favor  of 
peace  with  England  which  was  translated  in  several 
languages  in  Europe.  But  in  Congress,  both  in  the 
Senate  and  the  House,  he  was  assailed  by  the  Democrats 
and  his  whole  conduct  in  the  Washington  Treaty  and 
the  McLeod  affair  reviewed.  He  was  charged  with 
dishonorably  surrendering  to  England  a  large  part  of 
the  State  of  Maine,  of  violating  the  rights  of  the  sov 
ereign  State  of  New  York  by  interfering  in  the  defence 
of  McLeod,  and  of  writing  to  the  Governor  of  New 
York  that  if  McLeod  were  not  released  the  town  of 
New  York  would  be  laid  in  ashes.  There  were  other 
charges  which  originated  with  an  employee  in  the  State 
Department  who  intimated  to  some  of  the  Democrats 
that  he  could  show  them  evidence  against  Webster  in 
the  files  of  the  department.  It  was  a  time  of  great 
political  excitement,  the  Democrats  were  expecting  to 
make  capital  out  of  the  feeling  against  England  and 
it  would  be  a  great  thing  to  get  rid  of  Webster,  who 
was  hitting  them  hard  by  showing  that  they  were  trying 
to  force  President  Polk  into  a  rupture  with  England. 
Mr.  C.  J.  Ingersoll,  a  member  of  Congress  from  Phila 
delphia,  examined  the  files  of  the  department  and  framed 
several  charges  accusing  Webster  of  unlawful  use  while 
Secretary  of  State  of  the  Secret  Service  fund,  of  a 
default  of  over  two  thousand  dollars  in  that  fund,  and 
also  of  using  the  fund  to  corrupt  the  party  press. 

Webster's  success  in  settling  the  northeast  boundary, 
426 


INGERSOLL  CHARGES 

which  for  forty  years  had  defied  the  skill  of  all  other 
statesmen,  was  to  be  explained,  Mr.  Ingersoll  said,  by 
his  use  of  the  Secret  Service  money  to  corrupt  the 
press  of  Maine  and  bring  it  to  a  willingness  to  compro 
mise,  a  feat  which  former  administrations  had  been 
unwilling  to  accomplish  by  corruption. 

It  was  true  that  popular  feeling  in  Maine  was  so 
touchy  on  the  boundary  question,  the  people  were  so 
ready  for  war,  that  the  journals  of  neither  of  the  two 
parties  in  the  State  had  dared  handle  the  subject.  In 
vestigation  showed  that  Webster  had  employed  a  person 
to  write  articles  for  the  religious  press  of  the  State 
and  in  that  way  brought  the  people  into  a  more  amicable 
mood  towards  his  plan  of  compromise,  and  the  writer 
of  these  articles  was  paid  out  of  the  Secret  Service 
fund. 

There  was  considerable  excitement  over  Mr.  Inger- 
soll's  charges  in  Congress  and  two  committees  were 
appointed  to  investigate  them  by  witnesses  and  docu 
ments.8  The  committees  were  composed  of  the  party 
hostile  to  Webster  and  one  of  the  members  was  Jeffer 
son  Davis,  afterwards  Secretary  of  War  and  later  Presi 
dent  of  the  Southern  Confederacy.  But  although  com 
posed  of  his  political  opponents,  the  committees  reported 
in  favor  of  Webster  and  entirely  exonerated  him  with 
only  one.  dissenting  voice.  The  evidence  showed  no 
more  than  his  usual  want  of  method  in  dealing  with 
money  matters.  There  had  been  a  sum  expended  for 
which  he  had  no  vouchers;  but  he  had  paid  it  out  of 
his  own  pocket  until  he  could  find  the  vouchers.9 

There  was  one  of  the  charges,  however,  not  appa 
rently  passed  upon  by  either  of  the  committees,  which 
was  true  and  not  denied  by  either  Webster  or  his 
friends,  and  that  was  that  he  was  pensioned  by  a  num 
ber  of  prominent  gentlemen  in  Massachusetts.  About 

"Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xvi,  pp.  448-452. 
9  Curtis,  vol.  ii,  pp.  286,  287 ;  Works,  National  Edition,  vol. 
xvi,  pp.  445,  446. 

427 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

forty  of  his  admirers  who  had  been  supporting  him  in 
politics  for  some  twenty-five  years,  knowing  well  the 
story  of  his  debts  and  that  he  was  incapable  of  accumu 
lating  or  even  saving  money,  raised  among  themselves 
a  fund  of  $37,000,  which  they  put  in  trust  for  him,  the 
income  to  be  paid  semi-annually,  and  when  not  called 
for  to  be  added  to  the  principal.  The  list  of  these 
persons  included  a  large  proportion  of  the  most  prom 
inent  and  respected  citizens  of  Boston;  such  names 
as  Sears,  Appleton,  Shaw,  Lawrence,  Thayer,  Curtis, 
Grey,  Lowell,  Amory,  Dexter,  Quincy,  Lyman,  Shad 
dock,  Loring,  Cabot,  Gardner  and  Prescott.  It  was  a 
list  of  eminence,  conservatism  and  intelligence  of  which 
any  man  would  be  proud  to  have  the  support. 

Webster  accepted  this  gift  and  also  other  gifts  of 
money  from  rich  admirers  and  friends,  to  the  great 
injury  of  his  reputation.  Some  of  those  who  con 
tributed  were  interested  in  the  industries  sustained 
by  the  protective  tariff ;  though  by  no  means  all.  But, 
of  course,  the  charge  has  been  made  that  Webster's 
advocacy  of  the  tariff  was  bought  by  these  gentlemen 
and  that  he  was  nothing  more  than  their  agent  and 
attorney  in  Congress. 

Theodore  Parker  in  the  full  heat  of  Abolitionism 
charged  him  with  collecting  money  which  he  did  not 
pay  over;  but  Parker  was  not  a  lawyer,  was  always 
violent,  and  seldom  realized  the  full  meaning  of  his  own 
language.  He  may  not  have  realized  that  he  was  charg 
ing  Webster  with  embezzling  his  client's  money.  But 
as  Parker  was  a  public  man  of  the  day  and  as  the  pur 
pose  of  this  book  is  to  give  the  reader  the  evidence,  we 
must  quote  some  more  of  his  onslaught. 

"In  1827  he  solicited  the  Senatorship  of  Massachusetts; 
it  would  put  down  the  calumnies  of  Isaac  Hill !  He  obtained 
the  office,  not  without  management.  Then  he  refused  to  take 
his  seat  until  ten  thousand  dollars  was  raised  for  him.  The 
money  came  clandestinely,  and  he  went  into  the  Senate— a  pen 
sioner!  His  reputation  demanded  a  speech  against  the  tariff 

428 


PENSION  AND  DEBTS 

of  '28;  his  pension  required  his  vote  for  the  'bill  of  abomina 
tions/  He  spoke  one  way,  and  voted  the  opposite.  Was  that 
the  first  donation?  He  was  forestalled  before  he  left  New 
Hampshire.  The  next  gift  was  twenty  thousand,  it  is  said. 
Then  the  sums  increased."  (Sermon  on  Death  of  Webster 
p.  96.) 

The  next  to  the  last  statement  of  the  above  admits 
that  it  is  based  on  hearsay.  The  first  part  of  it  says 
he  was  so  weak  that  he  had  to  solicit  the  Senatorship 
in  1827,  and  yet  so  strong  that  he  could  demand 
$10,000  for  accepting  it,  which  is  somewhat  contradic 
tory.  The  statement  about  the  tariff  of  1828  is  ob 
viously  unfair. 

Setting  aside  these  unproven  charges  and  confining 
ourselves  to  the  pension  of  $37,000  given  by  the  Boston 
gentlemen,  Webster,  of  course,  should  not  have  accepted 
such  gifts  of  money.  He  ought  not  to  have  been  in 
a  position  which  tempted  him  to  accept  them:.  His 
acceptance,  even  for  the  best  reasons,  at  once  laid  him 
open  to  the  inference  which  every  enemy  or  opponent 
very  naturally  drew.  Yet  there  is  no  evidence  that  the 
Boston  gentlemen  in  question  had  any  intention  of 
bribing  or  influencing  his  opinions;  and  it  does  not 
appear  that  he  worked  in  their  individual  interests  or 
changed  any  of  his  opinions. 

For  many  years,  for  a  quarter  of  a  century  and 
more,  Webster  had  been  not  only  the  admiration  but 
the  hope  and  reliance  of  the  moneyed  and  conservative 
classes,  the  merchants,  manufacturers,  capitalists  and 
bankers.  Men  of  this  sort  had  for  a  generation  been 
living  in  continual  dread  of  the  crude  schemes,  wild 
cat  banks,  pet  banks  and  other  Jacksonian  and  Demo 
cratic  or  popular  methods  of  finance  which  had  brought 
upon  the  country  a  succession  of  disastrous  panics. 
They  regarded  Webster  as  their  own  peculiar  repre 
sentative  and  protector.  In  seasons  of  danger,  said  the 
Philadelphia  merchants,  "  he  has  been  to  us  a  living 
comforter,  and  more  than  once  has  restored  this  nation 

429 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

to  security  and  prosperity."  10  This  was  the  feeling-  of 
all  the  great  business  centres.  These  people  regarded 
Webster's  views  as  sound ;  they  wished  him  to  stay  in 
politics  forever ;  when  he  attempted  to  retire  and  devote 
himself  exclusively  to  his  profession  in  1836,  they  forced 
him  back  into  public  life  and  they  straightened  out  his 
tangled  private  affairs.  This  was  done  by  wealthy  and 
important  persons  in  New  York  as  well  as  in  Massa 
chusetts. 

From  all  these  circumstances  and  from  the  long- 
continued,  oft-repeated  and  spontaneous  support  of  those 
prominent  persons,  Webster  got  into  the  habit  of  rely 
ing  on  them.  They  insisted  on  his  staying  in  politics, 
their  admiration,  their  faith  in  him,  their  belief  in  the 
good  work  he  was  doing  were  obviously  sincere,  and, 
as  they  kept  him  in  politics,  on  the  small  salaries  of 
those  times,  and  prevented  him  from  earning  a  large 
fortune  at  the  bar, — well,  he  allowed  them  to  help  him. 
That  was  the  sum  and  substance  of  it.  In  the  letter 
announcing  to  him  the  small  trust  fund  deposited  for 
his  benefit  in  Boston,  they  say : 

"  Government  grants  nothing  beyond  the  salary  of  office 
for  services  rendered,  and  a  consequence  is  that  our  ablest 
statesmen,  on  their  retirement  from  the  highest  positions,  are 
frequently  obliged  to  return  to  the  labors  of  their  early  life; 
and  our  venerable  judges,  even  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
nation,  after  years  of  toil,  are  left  in  their  old  age  poor 
and  unprovided  for.  Your  friends  in  Boston,  desirous,  in 
your  particular  case,  to  ward  off  these  evils  and  furnish  you 
with  a  supply  for  your  future  wants,  have  determined  to  show, 
on  their  part  at  least,  a  decided  preference  for  a  permanent 
provision,  and  to  offer  you,  in  this  way,  a  prop  to  sustain  you 
hereafter."  (Curtis,  vol.  ii,  p.  286.) 

His  secretary,  Lanman,  said  that  "  he  knew  not  the 
value  of  money."  But  that  was  hardly  an  explanation. 
He  knew  the  value  of  money  as  well  as  anybody ;  better 
than  most  people;  but  he  never  could  bring  himself  to 
attend  to  its  details ;  he  despised  all  those  details  unless 

10  Curtis,  vol.  ii,  p.  299. 

430 


PENSION  AND  DEBTS 

they  came  into  great  questions  of  governmental -finance. 
He  could  deal  with  his  own  finances  only  as  troublesome 
generalities  to  be  shoved  aside,  left  to  the  care  of  others, 
or  left  to  take  care  of  themselves.  Those  details,  which 
to  some  men  are  a  delight,  were  to  him  a  nuisance  that 
interfered  with  his  studies  of  great  problems  lof  law 
and  politics,  his  oratory,  his  farms,  his  love  of  litera 
ture,  and  his  sports.  He  liked  to  regard  money  mat 
ters  as  mere  incidentals,  vulgarities  not  to  be  mentioned, 
and  nothing  like  so  important  as  Monica's  roasting  of  a 
fine  saddle  of  mutton. 

"  He  made  money  with  ease,"  says  his  secretary,  "  and 
spent  it  without  reflection.  He  had  accounts  with  various  banks 
and  men  of  all  parties  were  always  glad  to  accommodate  him 
with  loans,  if  he  wanted  them.  He  kept  no  record  of  his  de 
posits,  unless  it  were  on  slips  of  paper  hidden  in  his  pockets; 
these  matters  were  generally  left  with  his  secretary.  His  notes 
were  seldom  or  never  regularly  protested,  and  when  they  were 
they  caused  him  an  immense  deal  of  mental  anxiety.  When 
the  writer  has  sometimes  drawn  a  check  for  a  couple  of  thou 
sand  dollars,  he  has  not  even  looked  at  it,  but  packed  it  away 
in  his  pockets,  like  so  much  waste-paper.  During  his  long  pro 
fessional  career,  he  earned  money  enough  to  make  a  dozen 
fortunes,  but  he  spent  it  liberally,  and  gave  it  away  to  the  poor 
by  hundreds  and  thousands.  Begging  letters  from  women  and 
unfortunate  men  were  received  by  him  almost  daily,  at  cer 
tain  periods,  and  one  instance  is  remembered  where  on  six  suc 
cessive  days  he  sent  remittances  of  fifty  and  one  hundred  dol 
lars  to  people  with  whom  he  was  entirely  unacquainted.  He 
was  indeed  careless,  but  strictly  and  religiously  honest  in  all 
his  money  matters.  He  knew  not  how  to  be  otherwise."  (Lan- 
man,  Private  Life  of  Webster,  p.  90.) 

Some  of  his  lavishness,  like  buying  the  freedom 
of  slaves,  was  real  generosity.  Other  instances  were 
mere  carelessness.  Two  of  the  stock  stories  seem  very 
characteristic  of  his  point  of  view:  A  merchant  had 
long  pressed  him  for  payment  of  a  bill.  At  last  Web 
ster  stepped  hurriedly  into  the  man's  office  one  day, 
emptied  out  a  couple  of  handfuls  of  coins  and  notes 
on  the  desk,  pushed  them  towards  him  without  counting, 
asked  him  to  place  them  to  his  credit,  and  as  hurriedly 

43i 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

departed.  Then  there  is  the  old  and  rather  doubtful 
one  of  the  boy  who  came  to  his  office  for  payment  of  a 
bill  and  found  him  solemnly  reading  Blackstone.  "  I 
have  no  money,  my  boy,"  he  said,  abstractedly  looking 
up  with  the  great  black  eyes  that  almost  frightened  the 
boy  out  of  his  wits.  Then  he  paused,  fumbled  among 
the  leaves  of  the  book,  found  a  hundred-dollar  bank 
note  there,  handed  it  to  the  boy  without  inquiring  the 
amount  of  the  bill,  and  went  on  with  his  reading. 

Yetjn_all  other  thingSj  from  the  smallest  points  in 
the  mechanism  of  his  guns  and  fishing  rods  up  to  the 
most  delicate  shades  of  meaning  in  words,  this  man 
was  the  most  cautious  master  of  exactitude  and  details. 
But  money  was  dross  to  him.  He  liked  its  results ;  he 
had  had  more  or  less  of  it  in  his  lifetime ;  but  he  hated 
to  be  bound  by  it.  One  sees  this  trait  in  some  of  his 
early  letters  when  he  was  just  out  of  college,  and  he 
and  his  brother  and  father  were  continually  poor  and 
continually  borrowing  money.  He  never  complained  of 
his  straitened  circumstances.  He  made  fun  of  them. 
He  speaks  of  having  only  "  a  few  rascally  counters  in 
my  pocket,"  that  the  "  rascal  dollars  "  are  a  necessity 
after  all,  calls  them  "  dear  delightfuls,"  and  says,  "  How 
pleasant  it  would  be  to  retire  with  a  decent  clever  bag  of 
Rixes  to  a  pleasant  country  town  and  follow  one's  own 
inclination." 

The  boy  is  father  to  the  man.  He  never  changed 
much  in  that  respect.  To  have  "  a  decent,  clever  bag  of 
Rixes  "  somehow  or  other,  and  retire  where  he  could 
spend  them  lavishly  on  friends,  fine  cattle,  farming  and 
sport,  meanwhile  pursuing  his  tastes  for  literature, 
geology  and  astronomy,  with  a  touch  of  political  and 
rhetorical  eminence,  and  when  the  bag  of  Rixes  gave 
out  have  another  one  come  along,  he  hardly  knew  ex 
actly  how — that  was  his  ideal. 

One  cannot  help  remembering  the  remark  of  Judge 
Smith  when  Webster,  as  a  youth  in  1812,  declared  he 
would  risk  his  prospects  at  the  bar  for  the  sake  of  a  seat 
in  Congress. 

432 


PENSION  AND  DEBTS 

"The  impudent  young  dog  that  he  is;  he  does  not  know 
e  value  of  money  and  never  will.     No  matter,  he  was  born  for 
something  better  than  hoarding  money  bags."   (Works,  National 
Edition,  vol.  xvii,  p.  547.) 

He  knew  his  fault.  "  I  almost  wish  sometimes,"  he 
wrote  at  the  close  of  his  life,  "  that  I  had  been  born 
a  miser.  A  great  portion  of  all  the  ills  which  I  have 
felt  in  life,  except  family  misfortunes,  have  arisen  from 
too  great  a  carelessness  about  saving  and  investing  my 
hard  earnings."  *  One  day  in  1849,  when  nearly  seventy 
years  old,  sitting  in  court  and  tired  of  listening  to  the 
dry  arguments  of  his  colleagues  and  opponents,  he  began 
to  write  a  defence  of  himself  in  a  letter  to  General 
Lyman  : 

"It  will  be  said,  or  may  be  said  hereafter,  Mr.  Webster 
was  a  laborious  man  in  his  profession  and  other  pursuits- 
he  never  tasted  of  the  bread  of  idleness ;  his  profession  yielded 
him  at  some  times  large  amounts  of  income;  but  he  seems 
never  to  have  aimed  at  accumulation,  and  perhaps  was  not 
justly  sensible  of  the  importance  and  duty  of  preservation 
Riches  were  never  before  his  eyes  as  a  leading  object  of  regard 
When  young  and  poor,  he  was  more  earnest  in  struggling  for 
eminence  than  in  efforts  for  making  money;  and  in  after-life 
reputation,  public  regard,  and  usefulness  in  high  pursuits 
mainly  engrossed  his  attention.  He  always  said  also,  that  he 
was  never  destined  to  be  rich ;  that  no  such  star  presided  over 
his  birth ;  that  he  never  obtained  anything  by  any  attempts  or 
efforts  out  of  the  line  of  his  profession;  that  his  friends  on 
several  occasions  induced  him  to  take  an  interest  in  business 
operations ;  that  as  often  as  he  did  so  loss  resulted,  till  he  used 
to  say,  when  spoken  to  on  such  subjects,  'Gentlemen,  if  you 
have  any  projects  for  money-making,  I  pray  you  keep  me  out 
of  them;  my  singular  destiny  mars  everything  of  that  sort 
and  would  be  sure  to  overwhelm  your  own  better  fortunes ' " 
(Lyman,  Memorials  of  Webster,  vol.  ii,  p.  152.) 

The  situation,  after  all  excuses,  was  certainly  not 
creditable  to  Webster.  But  independently  of  the  in 
ferences  which  may  be  drawn  from  the  bald  facts,  the 
people  in  Boston,  New  York  and  Washington,  who  at 
various  times  furnished  him  with  money,  do  not  appear 

11  Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xvi,  p.  636. 
28  433 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

to  have  regarded  themselves  as  bribing  him  or  hiring 
him  to  advocate  particular  principles.  It  was  done 
openly  and  was  well  known.  They  seem  to  have  re 
garded  themselves  as  saving  from  financial  embarrass 
ment  a  valuable  public  man  whose  opinions  had  always 
been  the  same  as  their  own. 

The  charge  has  several  times  been  made  that  it  was 
very  outrageous  of  him  to  have  fine  cattle,  experimental 
farms  and  other  extravagant  pleasures  when  he  owed 
money  to  people  and  when  the  money  subscribed  and 
given  to  him  was  used  by  him  in  these  pleasures.  He 
no  doubt  laid  himself  open  to  this  attack;  but  it  is  per 
haps  a  little  narrow.  The  gentlemen  who  subscribed 
the  money  knew  all  about  him;  they  gave  the  money 
with  their  eyes  open,  knew  his  habits,  knew  perfectly 
well  how  he  spent  money;  and  presumably,  as  men  of 
wealth  and  his  admirers,  were  glad  to  have  him  spend 
it  on  whatever  was  his  way  of  life.  They  would  not 
have  cared  to  see  him  stint  himself  or  lead  a  meagre, 
mean  existence.  In  fact,  they  gave  him  the  money  to 
enable  him  to  live  like  the  regal  natured  sort  of  man  he 
was.  It  was  that  nature  in  him  that  won  their  admira 
tion;  and  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  money  was 
given  voluntarily  and  of  their  own  accord. 

It  was  a  characteristic  of  the  times.  People  do  not 
now  go  into  such  ecstasies  of  admiration  over  a  public 
man  as  they  did  in  those  days  over  Webster  and  Clay. 
There  are  a  number  of  stories  of  people  shedding  tears 
over  Clay's  defeats,  of  women  going  in  crowds  to  kiss 
him,,  bursting  into  tears  when  they  met  him  on  the  road ; 
and  it  will  be  remembered  that  when  Clay  was  ruined 
financially  by  an  unlucky  speculation  and  was  about  to 
sell  his  beloved  country  place,  Ashland,  his  friends 
relieved  him  of  all  his  debts  by  secretly  going  to  the 
bank  and  paying  the  notes  he  had  signed.  When  he 
inquired  in  astonishment  by  whom  this  had  been  done, 
he  was  told  "  not  by  your  enemies,  Mr.  Gay " ;  and 
that  was  all  the  answer  he  could  ever  obtain. 

434 


PENSION  AND  DEBTS 

Burke's  debts  were  paid  by  his  friends,  and  Charles 
x,^  described  in  English  books  as  of  such  immaculate 
politics  and  immaculate  oratory,  was  given  an  annuity 
by  his  admirers.  Fox's  debts  were  not  incurred  like 
Webster's  by  over-generosity,  lavish  entertainment  of 
his  friends,  excessive  charity  and  love  of  animals,  farm 
ing  and  nature.  They  were  incurred  in  gambling  of 
such  an  extravagant  kind  as  almost  to  warrant  the  inter 
ference  of  the  police;  but  they  are  treated  by  his  biogra 
phers  as  a  mere  amiable  eccentricity. 

A  few  years  ago  there  was  a  short  controversy  in 
the  Forum  Magazine  between  Senator  Hoar  and  Mr. 
Charles  R.  Miller,  editor  of  the  New  York  Times. 
The  Senator  maintained  that  there  was  no  deterioration 
in  the  Senate  of  his  day  as  compared  with  the  Senate 
of  the  time  of  Webster,  Clay  and  Calhoun.  Mr.  Miller 
maintained  that  there  was  considerable  difference ;  that 
in  Webster's  time  strong  men  went  into  public  life  from 
inward  call  and^  love  of  the  highest  distinction,  often  to 
the  sacrifice  or  injury  of  their  wealth  or  fortune.  Dis 
tinction  was  the  reward.  But  now  high  intellect  is 
regarded  as  better  rewarded  in  serving  as  officials  or 
lawyers  in  the  interests  of  great  corporations  or  syndi 
cates  of  capital.  Webster,  if  he  were  alive  to-day,  said 
Mr.  Miller,  in  closing,  would  be  neither  in  the  Senate 
nor  in  debt.12 

12  Forum  Magazine,  vol.  xxii,  p.  281. 


435 


XVII 

THE  MEXICAN  WAR  AND  SLAVERY 

THE  events  which  led  to  the  Mexican  War  and  fol 
lowed  it  wrought  a  profound  change  in  Webster's  posi 
tion,  a  change  which  alienated  from  him  many  of  his 
constituents  in  New  England,  and  which,  when  added 
to  his  unpopularity  for  remaining  in  the  "  renegade 
Tyler's  cabinet,"  may  be  said  to  have  seriously  marred 
his  reputation  in  his  own  party,  more  particularly  among 
the  Abolitionists,  Free  Soilers,  and  anti-Slavery  Whigs, 
and  to  some  extent  among  their  successors,  the  Re 
publicans. 

He  had  been  opposed  to  Henry  Clay's  compromise 
with  the  South  in  1833.  He  believed  that  it  was  un- 
\  necessary ;  that  the  southern  defection  was  not  well 
;  organized,  that  the  North  was  strong  enough  to  pre 
vent  one  State  like  South  Carolina  from  breaking  up 
the  Union  for  the  sake  of  slavery.  At  the  time  of  South 
Carolina's  nullification  proceedings  in  1833,  Webster, 
instead  of  compromising,  would  have  let  events  take 
their  course  and  would  have  supported  President  Jack- 
,son  in  making  an  example  of  South  Carolina  in  her 
attempt  at  nullification,  secession  and  rebellion.  But 
the  Mexican  War  wrought  such  a  vast  change  in  the 
balance  of  power  between  the  North  and  the  South,  it 
so  increased  the  slave  power,  and  so  encouraged  the 
organization  of  secession,  and  so  increased  the  numbers 
of  the  Abolitionists  who  also  believed  in  secession  that 
Webster  went  over  entirely  to  Clay's  idea  of  compromise 
as  the  only  way,  for  the  time  being,  of  preventing  the 
break-up  of  the  Union. 

The  origin  of  the  change  in  the  situation  was  Texas, 
which,  as  we  know,  won  its  independence  from  Mexico 
in  1836.  Immediately  the  question  of  its  annexation 

436 


HAT    POKTKA1T     OF     WEBSTER 
(From  a  Daguerreotype) 


THE  MEXICAN  WAR  AND  SLAVERY 

to  the  United  States  arose.  It  was  next  door  to  us ;  its 
people  were  largely  in  favor  of  annexation;  and  our 
Democratic  party,  especially  the  southern  Democrats, 
were  eager  to  annex  it,  in  order  to  extend  the  area  of 
slavery  and  obtain  a  larger  representation  in  Congress 
for  the  slave-holding  interest;  in  short,  to  throw  the 
balance  of  power  decidedly  in  favor  of  the  South.  In 
deed  the  Whigs,  except  Webster  and  a  very  few  others, 
were  not  seriously  opposed  to  annexation,  certainly  not 
as  much  opposed  to  it  as  they  should  have  been. 

It  had  long  been  the  practice  of  Congress  to  keep 
the  balance  of  power  nearly  even.  If  a  free  State  were 
admitted,  a  slave  State  was  soon  admitted  to  balance  it. 
There  were  at  this  time  fourteen  slave  and  thirteen 
free  States.  But  territory  for  slave  States  was  ex 
hausted,  while  there  was  almost  boundless  territory  in 
the  North  and  the  Northwest  from  which  free  States 
could  be  made.  The  South  saw  in  this  the  prospect  of, 
increasing  weakness  for  the  slave  interest.  The  vast 
region  of  Texas  would  furnish  four  or  five  slave  States. 
Mexico  had  set  free  her  slaves.  Texas  retained 
slavery  and  southerners  migrated  into  it  with  their 
slaves.  The  soil  of  a  large  part  of  Texas  would  pro 
duce  cotton;  and  annexation  seemed  necessary  in  order 
to  preserve  slavery  both  in  Texas  and  in  the  United 
States.  And  slavery  was  indeed  in  danger ;  for  besides 
Mexico,  England  and  France  had  recently  set  free  the 
slaves  in  their  colonies. 

President  Tyler,  after  Webster  left  his  cabinet, 
secretly  negotiated  a  treaty  of  annexation  which  was 
submitted  to  the  Senate,  but  rejected  because  the  boun 
daries  given  to  Texas  would  encroach  on  Mexico  and 
be  a  cause  of  war.  In  the  Whig  convention  of  May, 
1844,  Henry  Clay  was  nominated,  again  defeated,  and 
the  Democratic  candidate,  Mr.  Polk,  became  President. 

But  before  Polk  was  inaugurated  Tyler's  adminis 
tration  succeeded  in  annexing  Texas.  Calhoun  had  be 
come  Secretary  of  State  and  became  very  much  alarmed 

437 


t 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

for  southern  interests  because  there  were  movements  on 
foot  in  Texas  to  abolish  slavery.  If  these  succeeded 
the  southern  slave-holders  would  have  a  source  of  abo 
litionist  propaganda  on  the  south  of  them  as  well  as 
on  the  north.  They  would  be  almost  surrounded  by 
abolitionism  with  its  moral  arguments,  its  pamphlets 
and  tracts,  and  its  enticements  to  their  valuable,  or  sup 
posedly  valuable,  human  property.  Calhoun,  therefore, 
bestirred  himself  to  carry  out  a  new  plan  of  annexation ; 
and,  instead  of  the  plan  of  a  formal  treaty  which  had 
recently  failed,  he  secured  the  consent  of  the  govern 
ment  of  Texas  to  have  annexation  accomplished  by  mere 
resolutions  in  Congress.  These  resolutions  were  passed 
by  both  House  and  Senate  on  the  ist  of  March,  1845, 
three  days  before  Mr.  Polk  was  inaugurated  and  three 
days  before  Webster  took  his  seat  in  the  Senate. 

From  the  moment  he  heard  the  first  intimations  of 
the  schemes  for  annexing  Texas,  V\[ebster_  seems  to  have 
\been  deeply  agitated ;  more  so  than  some  of  his  friends 
ithought  necessary.  It  would  increase  the  slave  power, 
jhe  said;  it  would  endanger  the  Union.  He  wrote 
/articles  against  it  in  the  newspapers;  he  had  a  resolution 
•  against  it  introduced  in  Congress ;  he  tried  to  have 
public  meetings  called  against  it;  but  all  to  no  effect. 
The  Whigs  said  that  he  was  an  alarmist ;  that  he  was 
jealous  of  Clay  and  wanted  to  injure  him;  and  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  annexation  proceedings  were  put 
through  Congress  largely  by  northern  votes,  the  votes 
of  men  who  afterwards  became  Free  Soilers  and  Abo 
litionists  and  denounced  Webster  for  not  having  stopped 
annexation.  He  should  have  tried  harder,  they  said, 
to  stop  it.  He  should  have  made  a  greater  effort.  He 
should  have  given  one  blast  upon  his  bugle-horn  which 
would  have  been  "  worth  a  thousand  men."  He  might 
have  attained  the  Presidency  on  such  an  issue;  and  so 
on  with  similar  nonsense ;  for  when  men  become  fanatics 
one  of  the  first  things  they  lose  is  their  sense  of  humor. 

One  of  the  consequences,  however,  followed  very 
438 


THE  MEXICAN  WAR  AND  SLAVERY 

quickly.  President  Polk,  in  taking  possession  of  Texas, 
advanced  the  United  States  troops  into  the  territory, 
the  title  to  which  was  in  dispute  between  Texas  and 
Mexico,  and  this  immediately  brought  on  war.  The 
southern  Democrats — and  their  President,  Mr.  Polk, 
was  from  Tennessee — were  rather  eager  for  war,  which, 
it  was  believed,  would  bring  the  conquest  of  vast  terri 
tory  in  the  Southwest  for  the  extension  of  slavery. 

The  Constitution  allows  war  to  be  declared  only 
by  Congress,  differing  from  the  old  governments  of 
Europe,  which  gave  this  authority  to  the  Crown ;  and  the 
conduct  of  Polk  was  the  first  instance  which  showed 
how  easily  this  provision  of  the  Constitution  could  be 
evaded.  By  moving  some  troops  only  a  few  miles  he 
had  involved  the  country  in  a  war  which  Congress 
must  in  honor  accept.  Congress  merely  passed  an  act 
raising  troops  for  the  war,  and  the  preamble  to  the 
act  recited  that  a  state  of  war  exists  "  between  the 
United  States  and  Mexico." 

Into  the  details  of  the  Mexican  War  we  need  not  | 
enter,  except  to  say  that  Webster's  son  Edward  served  ! 
in  it  and  died  at  its  close  of  a  fever,  a  sad  loss  to  the  I 
father,  whose  other  son,  Fletcher,  was  to  meet  a  similar ; 
fate  in  the  Civil  War. 

That  Mexico  would  be  conquered  was  a  foregone 
conclusion;  and  the  most  serious  question  in  the  minds 
of  conservative  Whigs,  and  also  in  Webster's  mind,  was 
how  much  of  the  ancient  territory  of  the  Aztecs,  and 
the  Spaniards,  was  to  be  obtained  for  the  extension  of 
slavery.  Should  all  Mexico  be  obtained,  together  with 
California,  and  what  is  now  Nevada,  Arizona,  Utah, 
New  Mexico  and  Colorado,  the  slave-holding  represen 
tation  in  Congress  might  become  the  most  powerful 
republic  in  the  world,  and  set  back  the  clock  of  civiliza 
tion  several  centuries.  Webster,  therefore,  while  ex 
pressing  entire  willingness  to  vote  all  necessary  sup 
plies  for  the  war,  insisted  at  the  same  time  on  offers  of 
peace.  His  labors  were  all  directed  to  stopping  the 

439 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

war  as  soon  as  possible,  stopping  the  thirst  for  conquest 
before  it  became  insatiable,  and  getting  us  out  of  the 
scrape  with  as  little  slave  territory  as  possible. 

He  would  preserve  the  integrity  of  the  Mexican 
republic  as  far  as  possible ;  leave  it  with  all  the  territory 
possible;  for  in  spite  of  any  shortcomings  it  may  have 
had  as  a  republic,  it  had  freed  its  slaves.  Texas  had 
been  annexed  to  the  Union  under  a  Congressional  pledge 
and  understanding  by  which  four  new  slave  States  could 
be  formed  out  of  its  vast  domain,  and  how  many  more 
might  be  formed  out  of  additional  vast  deserts  in  the 
Southwest  was  a  terrible  situation  to  contemplate. 

Mr.  Wilmot,  a  member  from  Pennsylvania  in  the 
Lower  House,  had  introduced  his  famous  resolution, 
tacked  on  to  the  end  of  an  appropriation  bill  and  known 
in  history  as  the  "  Wilmot  Proviso,"  that  slavery  should 
be  excluded  from  all  territory  that  might  hereafter  be 
acquired  by  the  United  States.  This  was  an  excellent 
idea,  a  very  stirring  one  in  those  times.  It  was,  they 
said,  like  the  similar  proviso  in  the  old  ordinance  of 
1787  for  the  government  of  the  Northwest  Territory, 
the  proviso  of  which  it  was  disputed  whether  Jefferson, 
of  Virginia,  or  Nathan  Dane,  of  Massachusetts,  was  the 
author,  but  the  proviso,  nevertheless,  which  made  Ohio 
and  all  the  region  of  the  Great  Lakes  a  land  of  free 
dom.  The  free  soil  sentiment  rallied  to  the  idea.  The 
Abolitionists,  and  the  whole  slavery-hating  element  of 
the  North,  formed  themselves  round  it,  and  made  it 
a  party  cry.  It  would  be  a  vast  relief  and  satisfaction 
if  it  could  be  carried  out.  Webster  voted  for  it  and 
the  Abolitionists  have  never  let  him  hear  the  end  of 
that  inconsistency,  as  they  called  it. 

The  proviso,  however,  was  defeated  in  Congress; 
but  it  became  a  name  and  a  symbol,  almost  a  battle 
flag  for  the  doctrine  of  the  exclusion  of  slavery  from 
the  territories.  In  desperation  at  the  evil  look  of  the 
future,  Webster  believed  in  cutting  off  the  difficulty 
at  its  source  and  admitting  no  new  territory  at  all  in 

440 


THE  MEXICAN  WAR  AND  SLAVERY 

that  region;  and  he  introduced  resolutions  declaring 
that  the  war  with  Mexico  must  not  be  one  of  conquest 
for  the  acquisition  of  new  States,  and  that  the  Mexican 
government  should  be  informed  that  the  United  States 
were  ready  to  treat  for  peace  and  an  adjustment  of 
boundaries  on  terms  liberal  to  Mexico. 

Similar  resolutions  were  offered  by  Berrien,  of 
Georgia,  and  the  idea  of  total  non-acquisition  was  by  no 
means  without  its  advocates  in  the  South.  Looking  back 
at  it  from  their  lofty  ground  of  historical  perspective 
the  Abolitionists  denounced  it  as  a  most  contemptible 
notion,  an  admission  that  we  must  not  acquire  territory 
because  we  had  not  sufficient  strength  or  courage  to 
keep  slavery  out  of  it.  But  the  men  who  advocated 
non-acquisition  were  in  responsible  positions,  had  to 
deal  with  events  as  they  arose,  and  had  not  as  much 
to  gain  from  civil  war  and  disunion  as  the  Abolitionists. 
The  forces  for  acquisition,  however,  and  American  opti 
mism  that  everything  would  turn  out  for  the  best, 
carried  the  day.  By  the  treaty  of  peace  with  Mexico  we 
acquired  Upper  California  and  what  was  then  called 
New  Mexico,  which  included  the  present  Utah,  Arizona, 
Nevada,  New  Mexico,  Colorado  and  part  of  Wyoming. 
This  vast  region,  together  with  Texas,  was  capable  of 
adding  some  ten  large  States  to  the  Union,  and  twenty 
or  thirty  States  of  the  size  of  Massachusetts. 

Another  result  of  the  Mexican  War  was  that  General 
Taylor,  who  had  conducted  its  early  campaigns  with 
what  seemed  to  the  country  very  brilliant  success,  rap 
idly  reached  a  point  of  popularity  which  made  him  an 
obvious  candidate  for  the  Presidency.  "  Old  Rough 
and  Ready,"  as  he  was  called,  had  spent  most  of  his 
life  in  the  army  on  the  frontier,  and  his  letters  were 
not  always  grammatical.1  But  as  a  candidate  he  far 
outshone  General  Winfield  Scott,  who  had  brought  the 
war  to  a  close.  General  Taylor's  political  opinions  were 

1  Rogers,  The  True  Henry  Clay,  p.  202. 
441 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

not  well  known ;  it  was  not  certainly  known  how  much 
of  a  Whig  he  was.  But  the  Whigs  saw  in  him  an 
available  man.  He  was  a  Louisiana  slave-holder  and 
would  catch  southern  votes;  he  was  a  military  hero 
with  whom  they  could  win  as  they  had  won  with  General 
Harrison. 

In  April  and  May  of  1847  Webster  visited  the  South 
and  was  lavishly  entertained  with  dinners,  banquets, 
receptions,  and  processions  at  Richmond,  Wilmington, 
Raleigh,  Charleston,  Savannah  and  Columbia.  In  our 
time  we  have  not  been  accustomed  to  such  enthusiasm 
in  the  South  over  a  northerner.  At  Charleston  the 
ovation  was  really  splendid;  and  the  speakers  referred 
to  their  difference  of  opinion  with  Webster  on  nullifi 
cation  and  the  Constitution  with  a  pleasant  frankness 
which  apparently  put  everybody  in  a  good  humor.  Their 
distinguished  guest  was  taken  to  see  plantations  and 
given  glimpses  of  southern  life  and  the  slave  aris 
tocracy  at  the  height  of  its  power  and  attractiveness, 
which  must  have  been  of  absorbing  interest.  If  Web 
ster  had  only  kept  a  diary  of  it  or  written  some  descrip 
tive  letters  they  would  now  be  invaluable.  But  there  is 
not  a  word.  So  far  as  we  are  concerned  the  most  stupid 
blockhead  in  the  country  might  just  as  well  have  gone 
into  that  wonderland.  Something  was  wrong  with  him. 
He  was  sick,  his  literary  executor  says,  and  it  was  a 
rare  thing  for  Webster  to  be  incapacitated  by  sickness. 
He  had  intended  to  go  as  far  as  New  Orleans,  but  the 
increasing  heat  and  his  health  led  him  to  turn  back 
after  Savannah  and  Columbia.  His  speeches  were 
poor;  the  one  at  Columbia  particularly  so;  mere  empti 
ness  ;  and  Francis  Lieber,  then  a  professor  at  Columbia, 
at  the  University  of  South  Carolina,  tells  us  that 
although  elaborate  ceremonies,  illuminations  by  the  stu 
dents  and  receptions  by  the  citizens  were  gotten  up  for 
him,  he  disappointed  everybody  by  his  forbidding  man 
ners.  Prominent  men  were  anxious  to  talk  with  him, 
but  he  had  not  a  single  conversation  with  any  one. 

442 


THE  MEXICAN  WAR  AND  SLAVERY 

He  was  "  cold  and  torpid  like  an  alligator,"  and  "  absent 
to  a  degree  of  discourtesy  which  many  considered 
rudeness."  2 

Webster's  hopes  for  a  nomination  were  again 
blighted;  and  we  learn  how  little  the  Whig  leaders 
regarded  his  claims  when  we  find  them  suggesting  to 
him  the  indignity  of  taking  second  place  on  the  ticket, 
running,  in  short,  as  Vice-President  to  Taylor,  to  help 
secure  the  triumph  of  the  party.  Henry  Clay,  though 
twice  defeated  as  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  had 
considerable  strength  in  this  Whig  convention  of  1848, 
and  General  Scott  had  some  support.  But  Taylor,  the 
rugged  soldier  and  honest  man,  as  he  was  popularly 
regarded,  was  nominated.  No  party  platform  was 
adopted,  no  declaration  of  principles  or  policy  on  the 
great  questions  before  the  country  was  made.  The 
plans  of  the  Whig  leaders  were  to  secure  the  Presidency, 
relying  solely  on  the  enthusiasm  of  the  country  for  Tay 
lor  ;  and  leave  principles  and  policies,  including  Taylor's 
opinions,  to  be  settled  in  the  future. 

This  was  very  distasteful  to  Webster.  The  popular 
craze  for  a  Presidential  military  hero  he  disapproved  of, 
as  much  as  he  had  in  Jackson's  time.  He  had  very 
little  confidence  in  Taylor,  knew  nothing  of  his  opin 
ions,  and  did  not  believe  he  had  had  sufficient  political 
experience  for  such  a  high  office.  But  he  had  no  choice 
except  to  advocate  his  election.  Taylor  at  his  worst 
would  be  better  than  a  Democrat  who  would  turn 
everything  over  to  the  extension  of  slavery.  It  was 
Webster's  duty  to  assist  in  keeping  the  Whig  party 
together,  and  stay  with  it  as  the  only  political  organiza 
tion  in  the  country  that  at  all  represented  his  ideas,3 

A  large  number  of  Whigs  of  a  more  or  less  Aboli 
tionist  tinge  were  so  disgusted  with  the  nomination 
of  a  slave-holder,  under  such  circumstances,  that  they 

2Lieber,  Life  and  Letters,  p.  210. 

3  Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xvi,  pp.  494-499. 

443 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

left  the  party  and  never  returned  to  it.  They  formed 
themselves  almost  simultaneously  in  various  parts  of 
the  country  into  what  was  soon  known  as  the  Free  Soil 
party,  describing  itself  as  the  Constitutional  Antislavery 
party  as  distinguished  from  the  Abolitionists,  who  would 
destroy  slavery  and  also  the  Constitution  and  Union 
if  they  stood  in  the  way.  The  Free  Soil  party,  grad 
ually  gathering  to  itself  recruits  from  both  Democrats 
and  Whigs,  became  in  a  few  years,  as  the  Whigs  en 
tirely  disappeared,  the  Republican  party  of  the  Civil 
War  and  modern  times. 

The  Free  Soilers  would  have  gladly  welcomed  Web 
ster  to  their  ranks.  They  wanted  his  eloquence;  and 
they  said  he  should  have  joined  them.  It  was  a  crisis, 
they  said,  in  his  life;  he  could  have  consistently  parted 
from  the  Whigs ;  and  their  historians  have  gone  on  to 
enlarge  on  this  lost  opportunity  to  "  appeal  to  the  con 
science  of  the  North,"  which  would  have  "  answered  in 
tones  of  thunder,"  swept  the  country  like  a  whirlwind 
and  settled  all  the  questions  in  1850  that  were  afterwards 
settled  by  the  Civil  War  of  1861.  How  easy  and  de 
lightful  it  would  have  been ! 

But  we  must  remember  that  they  were  asking  Web 
ster  to  break  from  his  long  service  with  the  Whigs,  not 
for  anything  in  their  platform,  for  they  had  adopted  no 
platform,  but  because  Taylor  had  been  nominated  partly 
to  please  the  South  and  the  southern  Whigs  and  secure 
their  votes,  an  old  practice  of  both  parties,  natural 
enough,  and  not  necessarily  reprehensible.  Was  it  not 
a  little  too  much  to  ask  an  experienced  veteran  states 
man  to  join  a  brand-new  party,  not  a  year  old,  whose 
platform  against  the  extension  of  slavery  was  the  same 
as  the  Whigs  had  often  declared,  and  whose  inexperi 
ence  and  innocence  were  shown  by  nominating  as  their 
candidate  the  old  Democratic  fox,  ex-President  Martin 
Van  Buren? 

Ten  years  later,  the  Free  Soilers  having  become 
experienced,  the  question  of  joining  them  would  have 

444 


THE  MEXICAN  WAR  AND  SLAVERY 

been  a  very  different  matter.  But  really  the  suggestion 
that  Webster  should  take  the  stump  for  Van  Buren  was 
almost  a  joke.  To  an  enticing  letter  from  Mr.  E.  Rock- 
wood  Hoar,  painting  the  glories  of  free  soil  under  Van 
Buren,  Webster  replied: 

"It  is  utterly  impossible  for  me  to  support  the  Buffalo 
nomination;  I  have  no  confidence  in  Mr.  Van  Buren,  not  the 
slightest  I  would  much  rather  trust  General  Taylor  than  Mr. 
Van  Buren,  even  on  this  very  question  of  slavery,  for  I  believe 
that  General  Taylor  is  an  honest  man  and  I  am  sure  he  is  not 
so  much  committed  on  the  wrong  side  as  I  know  Mr.  Van 
Buren  to  have  been  for  fifteen  years.  I  cannot  concur  even 
with  my  best  friends  in  giving  the  lead  in  a  great  question  to 
a  notorious  opponent  to  the  cause,  besides  there  are  other  great 
interests  of  the  country  in  which  you  and  I  hold  Mr.  Van 
Buren  to  be  essentially  wrong,  and  it  seems  to  me  that  in  con 
senting  to  join  a  party  under  him  Whigs  must  consent  to  bot 
tom  their  party  on  one  idea  only,  and  also  to  adopt  as  the 
representative  of  that  idea  a  head  chosen  on  a  strange  emer 
gency  from  among  its  steadiest  opposers."  (Works,  National 
Edition,  vol.  xvi,  p.  498.) 

In  the  same  reply  Webster  speaks  of  another  habit 
which  both  the  Free  Soilers  and  Abolitionists  had  in 
excess.  There  is  no  question  that  Webster  and  Whigs 
of  his  kind  were  opposed  to  the  extension  of  slavery ; 
they  had  said  so  a  thousand  times.  But  every  time  they 
said  so  some  Free  Soiler  or  Abolitionist  would  conde 
scendingly  congratulate  them  and  pat  them  on  the  back, 
declare  them  a  convert  and  then  charge  them  with 
treachery  and  inconsistency  if  they  were  not  willing 
to  jam  through  a  Wilmot  Proviso  on  every  possible 
occasion  or  smash  the  Constitution  for  the  sake  of  im 
mediate  emancipation.  Their  historians  have  continued 
the  habit  and  brand  as  an  enemy  of  freedom  every 
one  but  an  extremist.  "  There  are  those,"  said  Web 
ster,  "  who  will  not  believe  that  I  am  an  anti-slavery 
man  unless  I  repeat  the  declaration  once  a  week.  I 
expect  they  will  soon  require  a  periodical  affidavit." 

The  substance  of  his  position  was  that  in  that  dark 
and  troubled  night  he  saw  no  "  star  above  the  horizon 

445 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

promising  light  to  guide  us,  but  the  intelligent,  patri 
otic,  united  Whig  party  of  the  United  States."  He 
spoke  with  the  greatest  frankness  of  Taylor's  short 
comings,  his  extreme  inexperience  in  civil  and  political 
life,  and  said  that  it  was  a  nomination  not  fit  to  have 
been  made.  He  went  so  far  in  this  direction  that  he 
offended  Taylor's  friends,  although  at  the  same  time 
he  advocated  the  election  of  Taylor  in  his  most  forcible 
manner  as  the  only  safe  course  to  be  pursued.  "  The 
safest  way  is  to  overlook  the  nomination  as  not  being 
the  main  thing,  and  to  continue  to  maintain  the  Whig 
cause." 

He  was  really  a  party  man  of  most  remarkable  inde 
pendence.  He  stated  his  exact  position  at  this  time, 
his  determined  opposition  to  any  extension  of  slavery 
into  the  territories,  his  opinion  of  Taylor  and  the  neces 
sity  of  his  election.  He  amplified  and  enlarged  these 
points  with  his  inexhaustible  faculty  for  detail  and  ex 
actitude.  We  read  it  all  with  pleasure  and  with  pride. 
It  is  convincing,  satisfying;  it  built  up  his  reputation 
for  the  future ;  but  in  its  superb  independence  we  see 
why 'he  was  not  in  those  days  an  available  man  for  the 
Presidency. 

Indeed  it  has  always  been  difficult,  and  is  still  diffi 
cult,  for  a  member  of  long  service  in  either  House  of 
Congress  to  become  an  available  candidate  for  the  Presi 
dency.  It  may  be  because  he  has  said  too  much,  his 
opinions  are  too  well  known  and  he  has  aroused  opposi 
tion  and  acquired  enemies.  It  sometimes  seems  as  if 
the  people  preferred  for  President  a  man  whose  opinions 
were  still  to  be  developed ;  as  if  they  wanted  the  excite 
ment  and  risk  of  discovering  them;  or  it  may  be  that 
they  instinctively  feel  that  the  head  of  the  nation  should 
be  a  man  as  unlike  as  possible  and  of  a  different  class 
and  experience  from  the  legislators  whom  he  is  to 
criticize  and  veto. 

Men  so  full  of  original  ideas,  who  had  said  and 
argued  so  much  as  Webster  and  Henry  Clay,  very 

446 


THE  MEXICAN  WAR  AND  SLAVERY 

naturally  found  difficulty  in  attaining,  the  Presidency. 
Clay,  who  had  a  large  and  most  enthusiastic  following 
of  devoted  admirers,  wore  himself  out  at  it.  When  he 
failed  of  a  nomination,  or  when  his  nomination  failed 
of  an  election,  as  so  often  happened,  these  admirers 
were  amazed ;  they  had  expected  him  to  sweep  the  coun 
try;  they  could  not  understand  his  failure;  many  of 
them  were  grief-stricken  and  cried  like  children. 

It  has  been  said  of  Webster  that  he  never  could 
attain  the  Presidency  because  he  was  all  head  and  no 
heart.  But  there  was  Clay,  the  Mill  Boy  of  the  Slashes, 
Honest  Harry,  Harry  of  the  West,  Harry  the  Brave 
and  the  True,  who  notoriously  reached  their  hearts  and 
seemed  to  have  them  screaming  for  him  as  they  screamed 
for  Jackson,  and  yet  he  never  got  very  much  nearer  the 
Presidency  than  Webster.  Both  of  them  the  people 
seemed  to  think  belonged  in  the  Senate.  In  fact,  Web 
ster  once  said  that  the  Senate  was  his  natural  home. 
Both  of  them  were  set  aside  for  a  Taylor,  a  Harrison, 
or  a  Jackson,  so  inferior  to  them  in  ability  and  state 
craft,  that  the  contrast  was  ludicrous. 

James  Russell  Lowell,  writing  in  the  Standard  at 
this  time,  ridiculed  in  his  best  strain  of  humor  the  deep 
disappointment  Webster  was  generally  believed  to  have 
felt  at  the  loss  of  this  nomination. 

"  Meanwhile  the  greatest  mind  of  any  age  is  sulking  at 
Marshfield.  It  has  had  its  rattle  taken  away  from  it.  It 
has  been  told  that  nominations  were  not  good  for  it.  It  has 
not  been  allowed  to  climb  up  the  back  of  the  Presidential 
chair.  We  have  a  fancy  that  a  truly  great  mind  can  move  the 
world  as  well  from  a  three-legged  stool  in  a  garret  as  from 
the  easiest  cushion  in  the  White  House.  Where  the  great 
mind  is  there  is  the  President's  house,  whether  at  Wood's  Holl 
or  Washington."  (Scudder,  Life  of  Lowell,  vol.  i,  p.  221.) 

Very  likely  he  was  not  quite  as  bitter  about  it  as 
people  supposed ;  and  we  have  some  evidence  on  this 
point  from  his  farm  superintendent  at  Marshfield,  Por 
ter  Wright,  who  lived  to  be  over  ninety  and  with  whom 

447 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

Judge  Aldrich,  .of  New  Hampshire,  had  several  con 
versations  which  he  has  kindly  given  me  an  account 
of  in  a  recent  letter. 

"  He  spoke  of  one  time  in  particular  of  his  [Webster's] 
coming  out  in  the  gray  of  the  morning,  filling  his  side  pockets 
with  ears  of  corn,  with  others  under  his  arms,  and  starting 
at  one  end  of  the  stable  in  front  of  the  feeding  place  and 
passing  out  an  ear  to  each  ox  as  he  came  to  him,  holding  it 
off,  so  that  the  ox  would  have  to  make  a  great  effort  to  reach 
it,  his  manner  being  like  the  playfulness  of  youth.  After  pass 
ing  the  length  of  the  long  stable  he  turned  to  the  farmer  and 
said  gravely,  '  Well,  Porter  Wright,  I  have  lost  the  Presidency. 
It,  of  course,  is  a  great  disappointment,  and  I  suppose  you  have 
had  your  disappointments.  We  shall  not  be  here  very  long 
and  when  we  are  gone  they  will  say  some  good  things  of  us 
and  some  bad  things;  but  there  is  one  thing  they  cannot  fairly 
charge  against  us,  they  cannot  say  that  we  are  late  in  getting 
up  in  the  morning.' " 

That  year  1848  was  a  sad  one  for  Webster.  His 
son  Edward,  who  had  gone  to  the  war,  died  in  Mexico 
of  typhoid  fever,  on  the  23d  of  January.  Still  worse 
for  him  was  the  loss  of  his  only  daughter,  Julia,  who  had 
married  Mr.  Appleton,  and  died  of  consumption  on  the 
28th  of  April.  Julia  had  been  his  particular  delight, 
had  designed  his  library  at  Marshfield,  reminded  him 
of  her  mother,  and  was  much  of  a  companion.  Her 
lingering  illness  was  very  painful  to  him.  Shortly  after 
the  deaths  of  these  two  children  he  collected  some  others 
of  the  family  one  day  at  Marshfield,  and  taking  two 
young  elm  trees  in  his  hands  planted  them  on  the  lawn 
in  front  of  the  house,  a  memorial,  he  said,  to  the  brother 
and  the  sister,  and  they  are  still  growing  there,  one 
of  the  few  distinctive  characteristics  of  him  that  remain 
on  the  place. 

This  was  the  time  of  Kossuth,  the  Hungarian  patriot, 
who  in  his  country's  cause  dared  to  defy  the  power  of 
Russia,  and  in  the  end  sought  asylum  with  the  Sultan 
of  Turkey,  from  whom  the  Emperor  of  Russia  de 
manded  him.  Excitement,  sympathy  and  indigna 
tion  were  aroused  in  the  whole  civilized  world,  and 

448 


THE  MEXICAN  WAR  AND  SLAVERY 

as  it  was  doubtful  whether  the  Sultan  would  not  sur 
render  him,  one  of  our  war  vessels  brought  him  to 
America.  It  was  an  obvious  occasion  for  Webster's 
oratory,  and  one  of  his  speeches,  especially  one  passage 
of  it,  at  a  great  gathering  in  Boston,  was  long  remem 
bered. 

"  Gentlemen,  there  is  something  on  earth  greater  than  arbi 
trary  or  despotic  powers.  The  lightning  has  its  power,  and  the 
whirlwind  has  its  power,  and  the  earthquake  has  its  power; 
but  there  is  something  among  men  more  capable  of  shaking 
despotic  thrones  than  lightning,  whirlwind  or  earthquake,  and 
that  is  the  aroused  and  excited  indignation  of  the  whole  civilized 
world.  The  Emperor  of  Russia  is  the  supreme  law-giver  in 
his  own  realms,  and,  for  aught  I  know,  he  is  the  executor  of 
that  law  also.  But  thanks  be  to  God,  he  is  not  the  supreme  law 
giver  and  executor  of  international  law,  and  every  offence 
against  that  is  an  offence  against  the  rights  of  the  civilized 
world." 

It  was  another  fine  specimen  of  his  ability  to  call 
the  powers  of  nature  to  the  aid  of  his  eloquence,  and 
the  Abolitionists  used  to  remind  him  that  they  were 
"  the  excited  indignation  of  the  whole  civilized  world  " 
and  suggest  that  he  join  them  or  be  dashed  to  pieces 
in  their  whirlwind. 

But  Kossuth  and  the  Hungarians  began  to  take  on 
a  troublesome  form.  Kossuth  was  an  unexpectedly 
good  orator  in  English.  Extracts  from  his  orations 
used  to  be  recited  by  our  schoolboys  side  by  side  with 
the  orations  of  Webster ;  and  some  of  us  can  still  remem 
ber  that  stirring  sentence,  "  It  was  not  I  who  inspired 
the  Hungarian  people,  it  was  the  Hungarian  people  who 
inspired  me."  In  short,  he  began  to  inspire  the  Ameri 
can  people  and  seemed  to  be  leading  them  to  force  their 
government  to  interfere  in  European  politics  contrary 
to  our  rule  for  such  cases  made  and  provided.  The 
conservatives  began  to  lean  towards  suppressing  or 
checking  him ;  and  about  that  time  Webster's  friend, 
Mr.  Colt,  of  New  Jersey,  gave  him  a  Hungarian  bull 
for  Marshfield.  The  bull  was  somewhat  of  a  white 
29  449 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

elephant  and  Webster  sent  it  up  to  his  Elms  Farm  in 
New  Hampshire,  where  one  day  it  threw  John  Taylor 
on  the  ground,  and  was  about  to  gore  him  to  death, 
when  that  sturdy  farmer  got  his  ringers  in  its  nose  and 
held  it  till  help  arrived.  He  was  badly  injured  and  had 
to  go  to  bed.  Webster,  arriving  soon  after,  went  in 
much  anxiety  to  see  his  favorite  man,  who  remarked 
that  he  nourished  no  enmity  towards  the  bull,  "  but  he 
is  no  more  fit  to  be  at  large,  sir,  than  Kossuth  himself." 
It  was  the  sort  of  thing  that  delighted  Webster  like 
the  hits  in  politics  Seth  Peterson  used  to  make ;  and 
ever  since  then  the  whole  world  has  known  what  John 
Taylor  said  of  Kossuth. 

The  plans  of  the  Whig  leaders  in  regard  to  General 
Taylor  were  justified  by  the  success  with  which  they 
met.  He  was  elected  in  the  autumn  of  1848,  principally, 
it  is  said,  because  the  Free  Soil  candidates  took  so 
many  votes  from  the  Democrats  that  the  electoral  vote 
of  New  York  went  to  the  Whigs. 

During  the  following  winter  and  spring  the  great 
question  of  slavery  in  golden  California  and  the  vast 
deserts  of  the  New  Mexico  region  was  the  most  absorb 
ing  subject  in  Congress.  The  southern  Democrats 
pressed  for  recognition  of  their  doctrine  that  a  slave 
holder  of  any  State  should  have  the  right  to  carry  his 
human  property  into  any  of  the  territories  of  the  Union, 
and  have  it  recognized  there  as  property.  The  terri 
tories  belonged  to  the  whole  Union,  had  been  conquered 
by  the  blood  and  treasure  of  the  whole  Union,  and  as  sla 
very  was  recognized  and  guaranteed  by  the  Constitution, 
why  should  not  the  owner  of  slaves  retain  them  if  he  mi 
grated  with  them  into  a  territory  that  was  the  common 
property  of  all  the  States  ?  Some  northerners  were  for 
settling  the  question  by  the  Wilmot  Proviso  excluding 
slavery  from  all  new  territory.  Others  were  for  set 
tling  it  by  prolonging  the  Missouri  Compromise  west 
ward,  prohibiting  slavery  north  of  latitude  36°  30'  and 
allowing  it  south  of  that  line. 

450 


THE  MEXICAN  WAR  AND  SLAVERY 

Suddenly  a  great  change  came  over  the  whole  sub 
ject.  ^  The  scattered  people  of  the  deserts  of  New 
Mexico  assembled  in  convention  and  petitioned  Con 
gress  to  establish  a  territorial  government  over  them 
excluding  slavery.  Calhoun  denounced  the  petition  as 
insolent.  But  there  was  still  another  surprise  for  him 
and  his  friends  when  evidence  began  to  accumulate 
that  from  the  nature  of  the  soil  and  climate  New  Mexico 
would  not  produce  cotton,  rice,  sugar,  or  tobacco,  and 
was  not  at  all  fitted  to  make  a  profitable  use  of  slave 
labor. 

The  greatest  surprise  of  all  came  from  California. 
Gold  had  been  discovered  there ;  immigrants  had  poured 
in;  they  met  together  in  convention,  formed  themselves 
into  a  State  with  a  Constitution  expressly  prohibiting 
slavery,  and  asked  to  be  admitted  into  the  Union  as  a 
free  State. 

All  this  changed  the  situation  very  considerably. 
The  southerners  were  disappointed.  It  was  not  going 
to  be  so  easy  to  make  slavery  national  and  freedom 
sectional  as  it  had  at  first  seemed.  The  North  was  cor 
respondingly  elated ;  and  no  longer  so  uneasy  lest  eight 
or  ten  slave  States  should  be  made  from  the  conquered 
territory  and  upset  more  than  ever  the  balance  of  power 
in  Congress.  California  had  declared  for  freedom,  and 
any  States  formed  out  of  the  New  Mexico  region  would 
also  probably  be  free. 

The  slaveholding  interest  saw  their  doom  and  pre 
pared^  for  ^  a  fiercer  struggle.  The  important  thing  to 
keep  in  mind  in  the  history  of  this  period  for  the  next 
ten  years  is  that  the  South  grew  steadily  weaker  and 
the  North  steadily  stronger.  At  every  turn  of  the 
situation  the  facts  were  usually  against  the  South.  In 
their  desperation  the  South  soon  began  those  filibuster 
ing  expeditions  to  encourage  rebellion  in  Cuba,  wrest 
it  from  Spain,  and  annex  it  as  slave  territory  to  the 
United  States.  They  also  looked  towards  securing  the 
Sandwich  Islands  for  the  same  purpose. 

451 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

There  was  plenty  of  uneasiness  on  both  sides ;  and 
in  1849  tne  whole  question  was  quite  evidently  nearing 
a  crisis.  The  Abolitionists  had  been  gaining  strength, 
organizing  themselves  into  conventions  and  societies, 
and  spreading  throughout  the  North  with  alarming 
rapidity.  The  old  argument,  the  stronghold  of  conser 
vatives  like  Webster,  that  the  Constitution  guaranteed 
slavery  in  the  South,  that  it  was  to  be  absolutely  let 
alone,  neither  increased  nor  diminished,  this  agreement 
and  understanding  that  had  been  faithfully  kept  by  the 
North  and  had  quieted  the  South  for  fifty  years,  was 
losing  all  its  effect.  The  people  were  no  longer  stand 
ing  in  awe  of  it.  The  Abolitionists  laughed  at  it.  They 
boldly  announced  that  they  would  wipe  human  slavery 
off  the  face  of  the  earth,  and  if  the  American  Consti 
tution  perished  with  it  that  would  be  the  fault  of  the 
Constitution. 

The  most  serious  practical  effect  of  their  doctrines 
was  that  the  people  of  many,  if  not  most,  of  the  north 
ern  States  would  no  longer  assist  in  returning  escaped 
slaves  to  the  South.  They  were  more  inclined  to  en 
courage  them  to  escape.  The  slaves  were  concealed, 
fed,  protected,  and  often  passed  on  to  Canada,  where 
there  was  no  question  of  their  safety.  Not  only  were 
the  northern  people  unwilling  to  assist  in  executing  the 
old  fugitive  slave  laws  enacted  by  Congress  in  1793  to 
carry  out  the  slavery  guaranty  of  the  Constitution,  but 
the  Legislatures  of  several  States  followed  the  lead  of 
Massachusetts  in  passing  acts  making  it  a  penal  offence 
for  any  State  officers  or  magistrates  to  assist  in  execut 
ing  the  fugitive  slave  laws  of  Congress. 

As  a  matter  of  cold  fact  there  were  probably  not  as 
many  instances  of  slaves  escaping  to  the  North  and 
assisted  in  their  escape  as  was  supposed.  If  all  the 
stories  we  read  of  the  "  underground  railroad,"  the 
Abolitionist  method  of  passing  slaves  to  Canada,  were 
true,  Canada  would  be  nearly  half  filled  with  a  negro 
population.  The  instances  of  the  return  of  slaves  under 

452 


THE  MEXICAN  WAR  AND  SLAVERY 

the  fugitive  laws  of  Congress  had  up  to  this  time  also 
been  comparatively  few.  Webster  made  a  special  point 
of  investigating  through  members  of  Congress  the  exact 
number  returned,  or  attempted  to  be  returned,  from 
New  England.  No  alleged  fugitive  slave,  he  found, 
had  ever  been  seized  in  Maine,  New  Hampshire,  Ver 
mont,  or  Rhode  Island.  An  attempt  had  been  made  to 
seize  one  in  Connecticut,  but  the  negro  was  discharged 
for  want  of  proof.  Several  instances  had  occurred  in 
Massachusetts,  but  the  history  of  only  one  was  known 
with  certainty.  There  were,  of  course,  instances  of  kid 
napping  or  abducting  of  negroes  by  persons  not  profess 
ing  to  be  claiming  their  own  slaves  under  the  laws  of 
Congress;  but  the  instances  of  legal  enforcement  of 
the  fugitive  slave  laws  were  very  few.4 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  when  compared  with  the  three 
million  of  them  that  remained  in  the  South,  the  number 
of  slaves  that  sought  freedom  in  the  North  was  not  as 
many  as  we  might  suppose.  This  was  true  even  in  the 
Civil  War  when  northern  armies  were  invading  the 
South.  Their  fidelity  to  their  masters,  their  voluntary 
willingness  to  protect  their  master's  property  and  his 
wife  and  children  while  the  master  himself  was  fighting 
in  the  Confederate  army  against  negro  freedom,  is  now 
one  of  the  proudest  boasts  of  the  southern  people;  the 
proof,  as  they  consider  it,  of  their  good  treatment  of 
their  slaves. 

Henry  Clay  was  fond  of  telling  of  one  of  his  house 
hold  slaves,  who  had  run  away  to  the  North,  but  becom 
ing  dissatisfied  sent  to  her  mistress  for  money  that  she 
might  return  to  slavery.  Clay  emancipated  his  slaves 
at  his  death ;  but  preferred  to  take  care  of  them  while 
he  lived.  To  a  Quaker  Abolitionist  who  upbraided  him 
he  said: 

"  I  have  for  many  years  owned  a  slave  that  I  wished  would 
leave  me,  but  he  will  not.  What  my  treatment  of  my  slaves  is 
you  may  learn  from  my  man  Charles,  who  accompanies  me  on 

4  Curtis,  vol.  ii,  p.  425. 

453 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

this  journey,  and  who  has  travelled  with  me  over  the  greater 
part  of  the  United  States  and  in  both  the  Canadas,  and  has 
had  a  thousand  opportunities,  if  he  had  chosen  to  embrace 
them,  to  leave  me."  (Rogers,  True  Henry  Clay,  pp.  155,  349.) 

There  were  instances,  of  course,  the  other  way. 
Slavery  was  an  evil,  and  no  one  was  more  firmly  con 
vinced  of  that  than  Clay.  But  in  his  own  State,  Ken 
tucky,  slavery  was  said  to  be  mildly  administered. 

The  comparatively  small  number  of  instances  of  the 
enforcement  of  the  fugitive  slave  laws  and  the  small 
number  of  instances  of  escaping  slaves,  compared  to  the 
millions  of  them  in  the  South,  though  important  for  us 
to  consider  in  order  to  understand  the  question,  were 
without  a  particle  of  weight  or  importance  among  the 
Abolitionists  of  the  year  1850.  It  would  have  made 
no  difference  to  them  if  there  had  been  only  one  instance 
or  no  instance  at  all.  They  had  become  convinced  and 
inspired  by  a  moral  principle,  a  moral  idea  one  of  the 
most  arousing  and  ennobling  that  has  ever  come  into 
the  world.  It  was  sweeping  everything  before  it.  Eng 
land,  France,  even  half-civilized  Mexico,  had  freed  their 
slaves.  Was  America  to  retain  hers  on  the  plea  that 
the  Constitution  protected  them?  The  Abolitionists 
had  started  out  to  destroy  slavery  and  the  whole  prin 
ciple  and  idea  of  slavery,  and  nothing  would  stop  them. 
According  to  their  statistics  given  by  Theodore  Parker 
in  his  Faneuil  Hall  speech  of  March  27,  1850,  some 
30,000  slaves  had  fled  to  the  North;  the  North  held 
$15,000,000  worth  of  them  and  Maryland  and  Delaware 
each  lost  $100,000  worth  annually. 

The  southerners,  o>n  the  other  hand,  were  inspired 
by  the  idea  of  defending  themselves  and  extending  the 
area  and  the  profitableness  of  slavery  in  cotton  planting. 
The  recent  emancipation  by  England,  France  and 
Mexico  had  on  them  the  opposite  effect  it  had  on  the 
North.  It  aroused  them  to  defend  slavery  and  believe 
in  it  at  every  hazard.  Cotton  they  believed  was  king 
and  would  become  a  greater  king.  It  seemed  profitable 

454 


THE  MEXICAN  WAR  AND  SLAVERY 

already  with  only  a  small  area  of  the  South  devoted 
to  its  culture.  It  was  only  just  beginning  to  spread 
into  the  region  of  Alabama  and  Mississippi.  What 
would  be  its  power,  not  only  in  America,  but  in  the 
financial  world  of  Europe,  when  it  was  carried  with  the 
cheap  labor  of  slaves  into  the  vast  regions  of  Texas,  if 
not  into  New  Mexico  and  California?  This  was  the 
dream  of  the  South,  and  it  must  be  confessed  it  was  a 
captivating  one.  Northern  minds  were  carried  away 
by  it;  and  it  would  not  be  southern  capital  alone  that 
would  extend  the  cotton  area  southwestward  through 
Mississippi  to  Louisiana  and  Texas. 

For  fifteen  years  afterwards  in  political  cartoons  and 
satires  cotton  was  always  represented  as  a  King.  The 
southern  people  fought  the  Civil  War  of  1861  on  the  faith 
that  he  was  King;  that  his  financial  importance  would 
sustain  them  in  the  contest  more  than  all  the  ships,  the 
mines,  the  factories,  and  the  varied  agriculture  of  the 
North;  that  the  bankers,  the  capitalists,  the  business, 
the  commerce  of  Europe  were  so  dependent  on  cotton 
that  when  they  found  themselves  deprived  of  it  by  the 
war,  they  would  sustain  the  South  and  make  her  an 
independent  confederacy  for  the  sake  of  King  Cotton. 
It  was  the  utter  failure  of  this  exaggerated  and  mis 
taken  financial  supposition  that  brought  on  the  final 
collapse  of  the  southern  confederacy. 

But  although  a  mistaken  notion  in  the  extreme  sense 
in  which  the  South  relied  upon  it,  there  is  no  doubt  that 
cotton  raising  was  an  industry  of  importance  in  the 
South,  as  it  still  is,  and  that  with  slave  labor  it  seemed 
particularly  profitable  in  new  regions  just  reclaimed 
from  wilderness  or  a  semi-wilderness  condition.  There 
was  a  well-founded  belief  that  as  civilization  closed  up, 
slave  labor  became  less  and  less  profitable,  until  at  last 
it  would  stand  as  a  dead  loss  and  the  community  would 
slowly  grow  poorer,  values  would  shrink;  and  this 
condition  is  supposed  to  have  already  begun  in  the  old 
parts  of  the  South.  But  in  the  newer  regions  towards 

455 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

the  southwest  the  conditions  were  the  reverse,  seemed 
very  favorable  to  slavery,  and  the  prospects  of  profit 
and  reward  to  men  of  energy  and  a  little  capital  were 
very  alluring.  What  could  be  more  fascinating  to  a 
man  o^  Anglo-Saxon  blood  than  to  buy  a  few  slaves 
and  se^them  to  clearing  some  cheap  wilderness  land 
for  cot,  i,  while  the  owner  enjoyed  the  field  sports 
and  outdoor  life  of  the  mild  climate  with  abundance  of 
game  and  the  prospect  of  making  a  fortune.  Thousands 
of  plantations  were  being  created  in  this  way;  and 
soon  the  sugar  plantations,  created  in  the  same  way 
by  gangs  of  slaves  felling  the  great  forests  of  the 
Mississippi  bottoms,  began  to  creep  up  through  Louisi 
ana  along  the  great  river.  It  was  a  man's  work,  enter 
prising,  grand;  and  the  slaves  themselves  enjoyed  it; 
there  is  no  doubt  of  all  that. 

The  southern  people  would  tolerate  no  interference 
with  this  southwestward  movement,  no  interference 
with  King  Cotton  and  his  slaves  in  either  the  old  or  the 
new  parts  of  the  South.  The  comment  and  criticism, 
the  assertion  of  moral  superiority  by  the  northern  Abo 
litionists  stung  them  to  the  quick.  They  began  to  re 
sent  almost  everything  that  was  not  a  laudation  of 
slavery.  From  having  been  a  community  filled  with 
emancipation  societies,  freely  admitting  the  evils  of 
slavery  and  talking  continually  of  future  emancipation 
a  great  deal  more  than  the  North,  they  now  became  the 
enemies  of  emancipation  and  freedom.  As  fast  as  the 
northern  Abolitionists  built  up  a  greater  mass  of  reason 
ing  and  eloquence  against  slavery  than  had  ever  before 
been  heard  of  in  the  world,  the  southerners  heaped  up 
on  their  side  a  most  unusual  defence  of  slavery.  They 
saw  in  it  new  beatitudes,  merits  and  wonders  of  which 
they  had  been  entirely  unconscious  fifty  years  before. 
"Slavery,"  said  Calhoun,  "has  benefited  all  mankind; 
.  .  .  has  spread  its  fertilizing  influences  over  all  the 
world.  The  southern  planter  has  been  the  tutor,  the 

456 


THE  MEXICAN  WAR  AND  SLAVERY 

friend  as  well  as  the  master  of  the  slave  and  has  raised 
him  up  to  civilization."5  They  began  to  prove  that 
the  condition  and  happiness  of  their  slaves  were  far 
superior  to  the  condition  of  the  free  laborers  "of  the 
'North.  They  retaliated  upon  New  England 'by  taking 
from  every  New  England  ship  that  came  into  a  sr-thern 
port  the  free  black  sailors  and  locking  them  up  i  prison 
until  the  ship  departed;  and  this  was  done  for  the 
reason,  they  said,  that  the  free  blacks  would  contaminate 
the  happy  southern  slaves. 

As  the  Abolition  movement  in  the  North   rapidly 
drew  to  its  side  religious  sentiment,   as  the  churches 
became   the   means   of   propagating   Abolitionism,   the 
southern  people  in  their  turn  showed  that  slavery  was 
justified  by  the  Holy  Scriptures;  they  showed  it  to  be 
a  humane  and  beneficent  institution   for  the  uplifting 
of  African  savages;  a  "  great  religious,  social  and  moral 
blessing/'     The  pulpits  of  the  South  became  as  ardent 
propagandists  for  servitude  as  the  pulpits  of  the  North 
for  freedom;  and  if  their  measures  for  extending  the 
area  of  slavery  and  making  the  slaveholding  interest 
dominant  failed,  ihe  South  stood  ready  to  fall  back  upon 
the  doctrines   oflnullification   and   secession   from   the 
Union,  which  Ha  Vie  and  Calhoiwi  had1  been  compelled 
to  prepare  and  build  up  in  anticipation  of  this  crisis. 
In  order  that  th^  North  might  be  freed  from  any 
obligation  to  enforce  the  fugitive  slave  laws  of  Congress 
specious  theories  were  invented  hy  the  Abolitionists  and 
their  lawyers  tha^ie  guaranteed  protection  of  slavery 
in  the  Constitutioifwas  not  fpart  of  the  instrument,  but 
a  mere  understanding  or  compact  added  on,  and  as  it 
was  an  immoral  compact,  the  party  who  regarded  it  as 
immoral  could  withdraw  from  its  performance  and  leave 
the  other  party  to  any  remedy  he  could  find.     Another 
theory  was  that  the  guaranty  in  the  Constitution  had 
been  intended  to  rest  entirely  on  the  individual  States 
6  Wilson's  Slave  Power  in  America. 


457 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

to  carry  out,  and  the  fugitive  slave  acts  of  Congress 
were  therefore  unconstitutional  and  void.  But  the 
principal  feeling  that  the  Abolitionists  worked  most 
successfully  with  was  that  "  the  higher  law,"  as  it  was 
called,  the  law  of  God,  the  law  above  all  codes  and  con 
stitutions,  forbids  the  surrender  of  a  fugitive  slave. 
On  this  broad  theme  there  were  no  limits  to  the  elo 
quence  of  the  Phillipses,  the  Giddingses,  the  Garrisons, 
the  Whittiers,  the  Sewards,  the  Wilmots,  and  the  Sum- 
ners,  not  to  mention  the  Lowells,  the  Longfellows,  and 
the  Emersons.  High-spirited,  unselfish,  devoted  men 
they  were.  Their  cause,  their  purpose  were  ennobling, 
but  their  methods,  their  disunionism  were  violent,  reck 
less  and  extreme ;  and  they  had  to  be  held  within  the 
traces  by  men  of  the  stamp  of  Clay,  Webster  and  Lin 
coln,  who  in  the  end  held  them  in  check  until  emancipa 
tion  could  be  accomplished  and  at  the  same  time  the 
Union  saved. 


458 


XVIII 

THE   SEVENTH    OF    MARCH    SPEECH    AND    ITS    CONSE 
QUENCES 

IN  the  session  of  Congress  of  the  winter  of  1849-50 
the  whole  question  of  slavery  came  up  for  debate.  JSFo 
one  could  think  much  of  anything  else,  hardly  any  other 
business  was  done;  and  even  the  annual  appropriation 
bill  was  negelcted.  The  South  felt  that  it  must  win; 
must  extend  the  area  of  slavery  rather  than  leave  it  as 
it  was.  Above  all  it  must  not  go  backward.  That 
would  mean  defeat  and  ruin  if  the  North  could  once 
start  the  South  on  a  retreat. 

The  extension  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  line  of 
latitude  36°  30'  to  the  Pacific,  allowing  slavery  below 
it  and  prohibiting  it  above,  would  not  satisfy  the  Aboli 
tionists  and  radical  Whigs.  They  insisted  on  excluding 
slavery  forever  from  the  territories  by  the  Wilmot 
Proviso,  that  is,  by  a  formal  positive  enactment  like 
the  old  ordinance  of  1787  for  the  government  of  the 
Northwest  Territory,  which  excluded  slavery,  and  they 
were  for  forcing  such  a  proviso  through  as  a  settlement 
of  the  question  and  a^stop  to  all  further  increase  of  the 
slaveholding  powen^The  South  was  violently  opposed 
to  the  Wilmot  Provi^yand  regarded  it,  if  passed,  as  a 
direct  defiance  and  i^tfo  to  them  and  a  sufficient 
justification  for  seceding  from  the  Union/VEt  would 
be  the  last  straw,  they  said.  They  were  sipfffly  waiting 
to  see  if  it  would  be  done;  and  if  it  were  done,  out  of 
the  Union  they  would  go,  no  matter  what  the  conse 
quences.  They  were  not  only  against  the  passage  of 
the  Wilmot  Proviso,  but  they  wanted  a  distinct  recog 
nition  by  Congress  of  a  constitutional  right  in  the  south 
ern  people  to  carry  their  slaves  into  territories  which 
were  the  common  property  of  the  Union.  One  sidely 

459 


i 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

wanted  slavery  excluded  forever  from  the  territories; 
the  other  wanted  it  permanently  permitted  there. 

In  this  predicament  Henry  Clay,  seventy-two  years 
old,  his  superb  vigor  shattered  to  feebleness  and  slowly 
dying,  came  forward  with  the  last  of  his  great  compro 
mise  measures,  those  measures  which  he  had  such  re 
markable  genius  for  carrying  through  against  all  objec 
tions  and  difficulties. 

His  plan  now  was  to  avoidj|lLj)ositive  or  sweeping 
aafiaaare^BKe^PTg*W?!m5r  Proviso,  OT^u^Tmea^Uffe  that 
would  give  ottence  to  the  boutn,  At  the  ^Uffig  time 
he  intended  to  prevent  the  extreme  southerners  from 
pressing  their  idea  of  a  distinct  recognition  of  a  con 
stitutional  right  to  carry  slaves  into  the  territories. 
Webster  had  also  reached  this  conclusion,.  Clay  set 
forth  his  compromise  in  eight  resolutions : 

1.  To  admit  California  as  a   State  without  any  condition 
for  or  against  slavery.     This  was  on  the  side  of  the  North; 
for    there    was    every    probability    that    slavery    would    never 
be  introduced  by  the  Californians,  and  they  had  already  pro 
hibited  it  by  their  constitution. 

2.  To   establish   territorial   government  in  the  rest  of  the 
region  conquered  from   Mexico   without  any  provision  for  or 
against    slavery.     This    referred    to    the    region    called    New 
Mexico,    including   the    present    Arizona,    Utah,    New    Mexico, 
Nevada,  Colorado  and  part  of  Wyoming.     It  was  almost  tanta 
mount  to   dedicating  that   region   to   freedom   because   slavery 
would   not   be   profitable  there  and  presumably   would  not  be 
adopted.     Thus  the  first  and  second  resolutions  were  intended 
to  accomplish  for  the  North  about  all  that  would  be  accom 
plished  by  the   Wilmot   Proviso  and"  at   the   same  time   avoid 
offending  the  South  by  passing  that  very  bluntly  worded  proviso 
which  professed  to  settle  the  question  against  the  South  posi 
tively  and  forever. 

3.  The   western  boundary  of  Texas  to  be   fixed   so  as  to 
give  up  to  New   Mexico  a  larger  share  of  land  than  Texas 
seemed    willing  to   allow.     This    was   a    serious   point.    Texas 
claimed  nearly  the   whole   of   New   Mexico  and   was   believed 
ready  to  march  her  troops  into  it  to  take  possession  and  dedi 
cate  it  to  slavery.     A  conflict  with  the  United  States  troops 
in  New   Mexico   would   have   followed   and  this  bloodshed,   it 
was  believed,  would  precipitate  civil  war  between  North  and 
South. 


THE  SEVENTH  OF  MARCH  SPEECH 

4-  That  in  consideration  of  Texas  relinquishing  her  claim 
to  part  of  New  Mexico  the  United  States  should  pay  that  part 
of  the  public  debt  of  Texas  which  had  been  contracted  before 
annexation.  The  claim  of  Texas  to  part  of  New  Mexico  was 
a  difficulty  which  prevented  the  settlement  of  the  larger  ques 
tion  ;  and  this  fourth  resolution,  with  the  third,  was  intended 
to  dispose  of  the  boundary  dispute  and  give  as  much  territory 
to  New  Mexico  and,  therefore,  as  much  to  freedom  as  possible. 

5.  Slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia  to  be  left  undisturbed 
until  both  Maryland  and  the  people  of  the  District  were  will 
ing  to  have  it  abolished  and  then  the  owners  of  the   slaves 
to  be  compensated.     The  Abolitionists,  and  many  who  were  not 
Abolitionists,  had  been  denouncing  slavery  at  the  seat  of  gov 
ernment  as  a  national  disgrace,  and  had  been  insistent  for  its 
abolition.     Even    some    southerners   who   considered   slavery   a 
necessity,    believed    that   the   selling  and    trading   in   slaves   at 
the   seat   of   government    was    scandalous.     Other    southerners 
regarded  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  District  as  an  insult 
and  a  weakening  of  their  cause.     This  fifth  resolution  gave  the 
Abolitionists   some   hope   and   made   no   immediate   change   in 
slavery  in  the  District. 

6.  Trade  in  slaves  brought  to  the  District  of  Columbia  for 
that  purpose  to  be  prohibited.     This,  it  was  supposed,   would 
gradually  abolish  slavery  in  the  District. 

7.  Better    laws    for    the    return    of    fugitive    slaves.     This 
was  in  some  respects  the  most  vital  part  of  the  compromise. 

8.  Congress  to  be  declared  to  have  no  authority  over  the 
trade  in  slaves  between  States  in  which  slavery  was  established 
by  law. 

Such,  in  brief,  was  the  famous  measure  which  has 
passed  into  history  as  the  Omnibus  Bill  or  Compromise 
Act  of  1850.  It  was-ingenious,  practical.  It  gave 
everybody  something.  {What  it  gave  the  Abolitionists, 


the  extremists  among  the^  rejected  with  contemptN^ut 
it  was  more  than  they  had  ever  had  before.  To  ^vast 
number  of  conservative  people  throughout  the  country, 
both  Whigs  and  Democrats,  the  sort  of  people  who 
had,  on  previous  occasions,  inclined  towards  Clay's 
ideas,  and  made  him  popular  and  successful,  to  these 
people  the  compromise  was  eminently  satisfactory  and 
seemed  statesmanlike  and  wise. 

On  a  winter  evening  of  weather  hardly  fit  for  Clay 
to  go  out,  he  came  to  Webster's  house  to  submit  to 
him  the  compromise  plan  and  obtain  his  support.  It 

461 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

was  a  strange  and  pathetic  meeting.  The  two  men, 
giants  of  intellect  in  their  way,  had  in  their  early  days 
been  on  familiar  terms,  and  some  very  friendly  letters 
from  Clay  are  to  be  found  among  Webster's  papers. 
Their  ambition  for  the  Presidency  and  the  Compromise 
of  1833  had  caused  some  estrangement,  and  Clay  had 
taken  part  with  the  Whigs  who  denounced  Webster 
for  remaining  in  Tyler's  cabinet.  But  all  hopes  of 
the  Presidency  were  now  gone  from  Clay's  life.  He 
seemed  feeble,  had  a  bad  cough,  and  became  quite 
exhausted  in  explaining  his  plan  which  he  intended 
shortly  to  lay  before  the  Senate.  Webster  was  deeply 
touched,  and  when  his  visitor  had  gone,  spoke  of  him 
with  great  kindness.  He  agreed  in  substance  with  the 
plan  ;  and  spoke  of  its  author's  purpose  as  noble  and 
highly  patriotic  ;  "  that  perhaps  Providence  had  de 
signed  the  return  of  Mr.  Clay  to  the  Senate  to  afford 
the  means  and  the  way  of  averting  a  great  evil  from  our 
country."  * 

This  was  a  turning  point,  a  strange  turning  point, 

in  Webster's  career,  just  at  its  close,  when  he  had  only 

two  more  years  to  live.     So  far  as  he  was  concerned, 

the  plan  was  a  very  dangerous  one.    A  largfe  portion 

>f  his  Massachusetts  constituents  wereardent.  not  to 

mviso. 


fl  miffed  that  there  should  be  no  more  compromises 
^glavfry  anJ*tn'e^To3ce3Mupon  llayjs  plan   veTy 

hji  i  sflfrr^  ih  f  r1  r  ^^  r^  ec^  the  Constitntionp»^c 

Independently  ot  their  numbers,  many  of  them  were 
men  of  such  high  talents,  such  masters  of  language, 
poets,  orators,  preachers,  wits,  essayists,  Longfellow, 
Theodore  Parker,  Wendell  Phillips,  Whittier,  Sumner, 
Lowell,  in  fact,  almost  the  whole  galaxy  of  the  famous 
New  England  literary  men  and  pulpit  orators  of  that 
century,  then  just  reaching  the  maturity  of  their  powers, 

1  Curtis,  vol.  ii,  p.  397« 

462  ^" 


THE  SEVENTH  OF  MARCH  SPEECH 


that  they  were  able  to  fix  upon  Webster's  reputation  a 
stigma  from  which  it  has  not  yet  recovered. 

To  have  the  whole  literary  talent  against  one  was 
certainly  a  heavy  load  for  any  reputation  to  bear. 
Webster  was  perhaps  unable  to  realize  how  severe  it 
would  be  in  the  future.  He  could  hardly  have  foreseen 
that  even  the  modern  Republican  party  would  largely 
accept  the  Abolitionist  opinion  of  him.  He  had  the 
support  of  the  commercial  classes.  The  merchant? 

were 


promise ;  but  they  had  no  orators  or  emin 
to"sL._ 

*"  *u;r  fc 


writers 


!»TO^M^tfMH>ni»,,1^r.».jii>t.Jin3y 


1T1 


lr 


people  to  believe  $iat  Webster  had  no 


to  lee 

sifi5port 

F'e "ioresaw  a*great  deal  of  this  and  knew  what  he 
was  doing.  He  would,  he  said,  devote  himself  to  the 
cause  of  Clay's  compromise  in  the  Senate,  "  no  matter 
what  might  befall  himself  at  the  North."  The  Wilmot 
Proviso,  he  said,  should  be  no  shibboleth  for  him.  He 
would  not  assist  to  extend  slavery  into  the  territories; 
but  if  New  Mexico  were  let  alone  she  would  not  have 
slavery  any  more  than  California;  that  it  was  useless 
and  worse  than  useless  to  arouse,  insult  and  irritate  the 
South  by  interdicting  slavery  in  a  region  where  it  could 
not  exist. 

On  the  29th  of  January,  1850,  eight  days  after  his 
interview  with  Webster,  Henry  Clay  offered  in  the 
Senate  his  compromise  resolutions  and  supported  them 
in  a  most  interesting  and  tactful  speech.  He  hit  slavery 
so  hard  once  or  twice,  calling  some  phases  of  it  an 
abomination,  that  southern  members  reminded  him  that 
he  came  from  a  slave  State  and  the  consequences.  To 
which  he  replied  that  he  would  attend  to  his  own  conse 
quences  and  leave  them  to  attend  to  theirs.  The  debate, 
with  varying  phases  of  excitement  and  violence,  lasted 
for  eight  months.  The  Constitution  of  California  was 
submitted  and  various  other  proposals  relating  to 

463 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

slavery.  During  February  Webster  took  no  part  in 
the  debate.  He  evidently  listened  and  pondered  pro 
foundly,  revolving  in  his  mind  the  interminable  intrica 
cies  and  details  of  the  problem  that  in  a  few  years 
would  shake  the  nation  to  its  foundations.  The  speeches 
were  violent  and  fierce.  Dissolution  of  the  Union  was 
talked  of  and  threatened  on  all  sides  ;  and  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  people  throughout  the  country  believed 
it  imminent  and  were  inclined  more  and  more  to  Clay's 
ideas  of  compromise.  Webster  received  many  letters 
describing  the  danger  to  the  Union  and  calling  on  him 
to  save  it. 

There  was  now  a  party  in  the  North  in  favor  of  dis 
solution  headed  by  the  extreme  Abolitionists  of  Ohio 
and  Massachusetts.^  At  a  meeting  in  Faneuil  Hall,  in 
Boston,  in  January,  they  resolved  "  That  we  seek  a 
dissolution  of  the  Union."  .  .  .  "  We  do  hereby 
declare  ourselves  the  enemies  of  the  Constitution,  Union 
and  Government  of  the  United  States,  and  the  friends 
of  the  new  confederacy  of  States,  where  there  shall 
be  no  union  with  slaveholders."^  Horace  Mann  de 
clared  that  disunion  and  civil  war,  even  a  servile  war, 
would  be  better  than  any  extension  of  slavery.2  Extremes 
were  meeting.  ^iT^jnflJTfr^  irhTrafp<i  nf  g1ffliYfirY  *T* 
the  extreme  oprjonents  of  slavery  "Tt-°  hnth  firepan  DP- 
to  leave  the  Union  :  each  declaring  that  it  was  the 
only  remedy  JocLihfarJSniplalnt  ;  and  soon  the  news 
camethat  fneoutfaern  extremists  w 


»-ates~r|:o    a    sER!R»mbn    convention     at        asvle     in 

"ennessee. 

Webster  had  always  been  slow  to  believe  in  any 
immediate  dissolution  of  the  Union.  He  had  opposed 
Clay's  compromise  to  save  the  Union  from  the  threat^ 
ened  rebellion  of  South  Carolina  in  .1833,  declaring  such 
a  compromise  unnecessary;  and  so  now  in  the  early 
part  of  February,  1850,  in  spite  of  the  violent  language 

3  Appendix  to  Congressional  Globe,  vol.  xxii,  Part  I,  p.  260. 
464 


THE  SEVENTH  OF  MARCH  SPEECH 

all  round  him,  and  although  he  favored  Clay's  com 
promise  plan  and  saw  great  danger  to  the  Union  in 
the  future  from  slavery,  he  was,  nevertheless,  not  in 
clined  to  believe  that  there  would  be  any  immediate 
overt  attempt  to  break  up  the  Union. 

"All  this  agitation,"  he  writes  on  January  i3th,  "I  think 
will  ^subside.  .  .  .  The  Union  is  not  in  danger. 

"I  do  not  propose  to  take  part,  at  present,  in  the  fiery 
discussion  of  these  topics;  but  if  anything  is  proposed  to 
be  done,  by  way  of  attempting  to  carry  evil  purposes  into  effect 
L  shall  have  something  to  say."  (Works,  National  Edition! 
vol.  xvi,  p.  530.) 

About  a  week^after  the  above  letter  Clay  visited  him 
and  submitted  his  compromise  plan,  which  Webster 
approved  of  in  substance.  On  the  2gth  of  January 
the  plan  was  introduced  in  the  Senate  by  Clay,  and 
on  February  i3th  and  I4th  we  find  Webster  writing: 
"California  will  come  in;  New  Mexico  will  be  post 
poned;  no  bones  will  be  broken." 

The  increasing  violence  was  bringing  intimations 
and  letters  that  real  danger  of  open  secession  in  the 
South^  was  approaching,  but  still  he  replies  that  he 
does  "  not  partake  in  any  degree  in  those  apprehen 
sions."  On  the  24th,  however,  he  had  begun  to  change 
his  opinion.  "  I  am  nearly  broken  down,"  he  writes, 
"  with  labor  and  anxi&y.  I  know  not  how  to  meet  the 
present  emergency,  or  with  what  weapons  to  beat  down 
the  northern  and  southern  follies  now  raging  in  equal 
extremes."  3 

Soon  after  that  he  must  have  gone  over  entirely  to 
the  opinion  of  imminent  danger,  believed  that  the  seces 
sion  convention  in  Tennessee  was  no  idle  parade,  and 
that  six  or  seven  southern  States  were  prepared  to 
secede.  Those  States  had  all  passed  secession  resolu 
tions.  If  only  one  had  passed  secession  resolutions  as 
m  J833,  it  would  be  a  trifle;  but  seven  made  it  serious. 

3  Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xvi,  pp.  532,  533. 
30  465 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

The  foregoing  quotations  are  given  because  of  the 
charge  afterwards  made  by  the  Abolitionists  that  he  in 
tended  at  first  to  "  come  out  for  freedom,"  as  they 
called  it.  That  is,  oppose  Clay's  compromise,  repudiate 
the  agreement  with  Texas,  refuse  to  pass  a  new  fugitive 
slave  law,  declare  slavery  prohibited  forever  in  all  new 
territory,  set  the  South  at  defiance,  and  let  her  do  her 
worst  in  going  out  of  the  Union,  in  the  conviction 
that  she  either  would  not  dare  go  out,  or  if  she  did  go 
out,  would  find  it  impossible  to  maintain  slavery  alone  in 
the  face  of  the  whole  civilized  world  and  would  soon 
petition  to  come  back  into  the  Union  without  slavery. 
From  this  Abolitionist  position,  they  say,  Webster  sud 
denly  changed  to  a  supporter  of  slavery  for  the  sake  of 
winning  southern  votes  for  the  Presidency. 

I  do  not  think  that  the  letters  show  any  such  motive. 
They  merely  show  him  considering  the  subject,  as  was 
his  usual  custom,  waiting,  watching  events  and  opin 
ions.  As  to  his  intending  to  deliver  an  Abolitionist 
or  Free  Soil  speech,  that  would  have  been  such  a  rever 
sion  of  his  whole  past  and  of  all  his  opinions  as  we  know 
them,  that  it  is  impossible  to  suppose  it,  and  it  would 
require  overwhelming  evidence  to  prove  it.  He 
approved  in  substance  Clay's  compromise  plan  from 
the  beginning,  that  is,  from  January  2ist,  when  Clay 
first  consulted  him  about  it,  and  subsequent  events  con 
firmed  him  more  and  more  in  approval  of  it. 

The  Abolitionists  professed  to  have  proof  of  his 
sudden  change  from  Abolitionism  to  compromise,  but 
they  never  produced  it.  Theodore  Parker,  in  his  two 
addresses  on  the  subject,  said  that  he  had  seen  letters, 
or  that  his  friends  had  letters  proving  it,  but  the  letters 
were  never  produced.  Joshua  Giddings  said  that  he 
talked  with  Webster  on  the  subject  and  understood 
from  him  that  he  was  meditating  a  strong  anti-slavery 
speech,  and  that  other  Abolitionists  and  Free  Soilers 
got  the  same  impression,  and  that  he  submitted  a  skele 
ton  of  his  speech  to  the  leaders  of  the  Free  Soil  party. 

466 


THE  SEVENTH  OF  MARCH  SPEECH 

Very  likely  Mr.  Giddings  and  others  understood  Web 
ster  to  say  what  they  wanted  and  hoped  to  have  him 
say ;  but  that  amounts  to  nothing  as  proof  or  evidence.4 
It  is  important  to  note  in  this  connection  that  Web 
ster  believed  that  a  civil  war,  consequent  upon  an  at 
tempt  to  secede  and  break  up  the  Union,  would  not 
abolish  slavery.  He  opposed  emphatically  the  opinion 
of  the  Abolitionists  that  by  such  a  convulsion  the  cause" 
of  emancipation  would  be  promoted.  "  In  my  judg 
ment/'  he  wrote  Dr.  Furness,  "  confusion,  conflict,  em 
bittered  controversy,  violence,  bloodshed  and  civil  war, 
would  only  rivet  the  chains  of  slavery  the  more 
strongly." 

The  guess  of  the  Abolitionists  that  a  civil  war  would 
abolish  slavery  turned  out  to  be  correct  as  to  the  Civil 
War  some  ten  or  fifteen  years  later.  Whether  it  would 
have  been  correct  for  a  civil  war  in  1850  is  another  ques 
tion.  We  must  also  remember  that  Webster's  opinion 
was  shared  in  1850  by  an  immense  number  of  the  stead 
iest  and  most  conservative  people  of  the  North;  they 
did  not  believe  that  the  Union  would  survive  a  civil 
war ;  a  dissolution  of  the  Union  meant  to  them  the  per 
manent  establishment  of  slavery  in  the  South ;  and  civil 
war  as  a  protection  to  slavery  may  be  said  to  have 
been  the  faith  and  hope  of  the  South  at  that  time. 

There  were  few  minds  bold  enough  in  1850,  or,  as 
would  have  been  said  at  that  time,  insane  enough,  to 
entertain  the  double  thought  that  in  a  civil  war  the  Union 
could  be  saved  and  slavery  abolished.  That  was' an 
ideal  of  a  dozen  years  later,  when  Lincoln  stood  upon 
the^  principle  of  three  ideas—"  the  Constitution,  the 
Union,  and  the  freedom  of  mankind."  That  was  Web 
ster's  ideal  also;  but  in  1850  he  believed  a  civil  war 
would  shatter  it.  Under  the  conditions  of  1850  he 
believed  that  the  Constitution  and  the  Union  could  be 
saved  for  the  time  being  only  by  a  compromise,  leaving 

4  Wilson,  Rise  of  the  Slave  Power,  vol.  ii,  p.  242;  Rhodes, 
History  of  the  United  States,  vol.  i,  pp.  148,  149. 

467 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

the  freedom  of  mankind  to  be  worked  out  gradually  by 
some  form  of  emancipation.  He  believed  that  free 
labor  would  ultimately  prevail  throughout  the  country, 
including  the  South,  as  it  had  in  New  England  and  the 
Middle  States.5  If  he  had  thought  all  three  ideas  could 
have  been  accomplished  by  civil  war,  he  might  have  been 
willing  to  accept  civil  war  at  once.  His  opinion  was 
that  of  millions  of  conservatives  North  and  South. 

By  the  end  of  February,  having  listened  to  two 
months  of  debate,  he  decided  that  the  time  for  the  state 
ment  of  his  own  opinions  had  come,  and  on  the  7th  of 
March  he  delivered  to  crowded  galleries  the  speech 
which  has  always  been  known  by  that  date.  He  him 
self  preferred  to  call  it  "  The  Constitution  and  the 
Union."  It  was  merely  in  recommendation  of  the  Clay 
compromise  resolutions ;  but  so  comprehensive  were  its 
statements,  so  vivid  and  powerful  its  arguments,  that 
Clay's  reasoning  in  support  of  his  own  measure  was 
forgotten  and  the  heaviest  part  of  the  abuse  and  unpopu 
larity  for  a  compromise  with  the  slave  power  fell  upon 
Webster  instead  of  upon  Clay,  the  originator  of  the 
measure. 

It  is  probable  that  no  speech  Webster  ever  made  in 
the  Senate,  perhaps  not  even  the  reply  to  Calhoun,  was 
thought  out  so  thoroughly,  and  with  such  complete 
preparation.  Seventeen  pages  of  notes  were  found 
among  his  papers.  But  the  notes  he  used  in  speaking 
were  all  on  two  small  scraps  of  paper.  He  had  it  so 
well  in  hand  that  he  hardly  needed  notes  in  speaking. 
The  whole  of  it  had  evidently  been  revolved  over  and 
over  again  in  that  powerful  mind  and  memory,  until 
the  delivery  of  it  was  a  mere  recital. 

It  is  for  that  reason,  perhaps,  that  it  is  so  clear  and 
easy  to  read.  There  is  scarcely  a  dull  or  dry  line  in  it. 
Though  nearly  forty  pages  of  print,  we  seem  to  read 
it  through  in  an  instant.  There  are  no  wonderful 

'Edward  Everett,  Orations  and  Speeches,  vol.  iv,  p.  225. 


Courtesy  of  the  S.  S.  McClure  Company 


WEBSTER    AT    THE    TIME    OF    THE     7TH    OF    MARCH    SPEECH 
(From  a  Daguerreotype) 


THE  SEVENTH  OF  MARCH  SPEECH 

passages  to  quote  like  those  of  some  of  his  former 
famous  speeches.  It  is  more  the  simplicity,  the  brevity 
and  directness  of  an  older  man  who  has  passed  beyond 
the  exuberances  of  youth.  In  this  respect  it  is  curi 
ously  like  Clay's  speech  in  support  of  the  compromise. 
Both  men  used  very  much  the  same  arguments;  but 
Webster  touched  his  with  such  fire  of  genius  in  expres 
sion  that  they  live  and  Clay's  are  forgotten. 

Everybody  except  the  Abolitionists  seems  to  have 
admitted  that  the  delivery  of  the  speech  was  most  re 
markable  and  impressive.  General  Lyman,  who  was 
present,  says  that  though  Webster  spoke  for  three 
hours,  he  never  looked  at  his  notes  except  to  take  from 
them  copies  of  resolutions  or  quotations  ;  never  hesitated 
for  a  word  or  a  phrase,  or  changed  the  form  of  a  sen 
tence;  the  speech  rolled  out  like  a  mighty  river.  The 
audience  as  usual  was  spellbound  into  perfect  stillness. 
'  Not  a  sound — not  even  the  falling  of  a  pin — broke  the 
stillness  between  his  sentences." 

The  only  conspicuous  change  noticeable  in  him  seems 
to  have  been  that  his  eyesight  would  no  longer  readily 
accommodate  itself  to  short  distances  in  reading  quota 
tions  from  books  and  papers  or  else  he  wanted  to  save 
his  strength ;  for  he  handed  these  quotations  to  Senator 
Greene,  near  him,  who  read  them  aloud  to  the  audi 
ence.  Senator  Hoar,  in  his  autobiography,  says  that 
Webster  at  this  time  of  his  life  had  become  excessively 
slow  and  deliberate  in  speaking;  and  he  mentions  an 
other  instance  in  which  his  quotations  were  read  for 
him,  apparently,  Hoar  thinks,  to  husband  his  strength. 
There  was  an  Indiana  Abolitionist,  a  member  of 
Congress,  G.  W.  Julian,  who  says  he  was  present  at  the 
Seventh  of  March  Speech  and  that  it  was  a  failure  in 
delivery  as  well  as  in  other  respects. 

"He  not  only  spoke  with  very  unusual  deliberation,  but 
with  pauses  having  no  relation  whatever  to  the  sense.  His 
sentences  were  broken  into  the  oddest  fragments,  and  the 
hearer  was  perplexed  in  the  endeavor  to  gather  his  meaning. 

469 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

In  declaring,  for  example,  that  he  'would  put  in  no  Wilmot 
Proviso  for  the  purpose  of  a  taunt,'  etc.,  he  made  a  long  pause 
at  '  Wilmot/  perhaps  half  a  minute,  and,  finally,  having  appa 
rently  recovered  his  breath,  added  the  word  'proviso';  and 
then,  after  another  considerable  pause,  went  on  with  his  sentence. 
His  speaking  seemed  painfully  laborious.  Great  drops  of  per 
spiration  stood  upon  his  forehead  and  face,  notwithstanding 
the  slowness  of  his  utterance,  suggesting,  as  a  possible  explana 
tion,  a  very  recent  and  heavy  dinner,  or  a  greatly  troubled 
conscience  over  his  final  act  of  apostasy  from  his  early  New 
England  faith.  The  latter  was  probably  the  truth,  since  he  is 
known  to  have  long  and  seriously  pondered  the  question  of 
his  ultimate  decision ;  and  with  his  naturally  great  and  noble 
traits  of  character  he  could  not  have  announced  it  without 
manifest  tokens  of  uneasiness."  (G.  W.  Julian,  Political  Recol 
lections,  p.  86.) 

Although  without  the  exuberantly  eloquent  passages 
of  the  Reply  to  Hayne,  this  speech  is  the  most  classic 
one  Webster  ever  delivered,  the  most  perfect  in  taste, 
the  farthest  removed  from  the  spread-eagle  oratory  of 
his  young  days,  which  he  regretted  and  of  which,  as  we 
have  seen,  he  was  always  trying  to  cure  himself.  The 
effort  and  the  cure  went  steadily  on  until  they  culminated 
in  this  speech.  In  these  respects  it  is  the  speech  which, 
perhaps,  places  him  closest  to  the  older  orators  of  the 
world.  Even  Whittier,  who  detested  and  attacked  the 
arguments  of  the  speech,  admitted  its  beauty  and  power. 
"  My  admiration,"  he  said,  "  of  the  personality  and  in 
tellectual  power  of  the  great  Senator  was  never  stronger 
than  when  I  laid  down  his  speech,  and  in  one  of  the 
saddest  moments  of  my  life,  penned  my  protest." 

The  crowd  had  gathered  that  day,  emptying  the 
House  of  Representatives,  filling  the  galleries  and  all 
the  standing  room  in  the  Senate  hall,  and  extending 
far  out  into  the  corridors,  because  they  had  heard  that 
Webster  was  to  speak.  In  fact,  in  anticipation  of  the 
event,  people  had  been  travelling  to  Washington  from 
all  over  the  country  for  several  days.  Chairs,  sofas, 
temporary  seats  made  of  public  documents  piled  one 
upon  another,  were  crowded  into  every  available  corner. 

470 


THE  SEVENTH  OF  MARCH  SPEECH 

Senators  gave  up  their  seats  to  ladies  and  stood  in  the 
aisles.  Senator  Walker,  of  Wisconsin,  and  young  Sew- 
ard,  of  New  York,  were  entitled  to  the  floor ;  but  seeing 
the  enormous  crowd,  Senator  Walker,  when  he  rose  to 
speak,  said  that  such  a  vast  audience  had  not  come  to 
hear  him.  There  was  but  one  man  who  could  assemble 
such  an  audience  and  he  and  Seward  yielded  the  floor 
to  him. 

Seward,  who  thus  yielded  his  privilege,  had  been 
Governor  of  New  York,  was  an  ardent  young  Free 
Soiler,  and  the  same  Seward  who  played  such  a  dis 
tinguished  part  in  taking  the  country  through  the  Civil 
War,  In  fact,  the  crowd  that  listened  to  Webster  that 
day  was  a  strange  mixture  of  the  men  of  the  past  and 
of  the  future,  of  intellect  and  statesmanship  proved  and 
tried,  and  of  intellect  and  statesmanship  that  was  to  be. 

Calhoun  dragged  himself  from  a  sick-bed  to  hear 
Webster,  and  in  a  few  months  was  dead.  Clay  almost 
equally  feeble  was  standing  by  his  guns  to  the  last. 
Two  years  afterwards  he  and  Webster  were  both  dead. 
Old  Benton  was  also  there,  recently  rejected  by  Mis 
souri  because  he  would  not  accept  her  instructions  on 
slavery,  and  soon  to  disappear  from  the  Senate.  Those 
were  of  the  past  and  a  grand  past  they  had  made  it. 

Listening  to  Webster  either  as  Senators  or  members 
of  the  Lower  House  were  Hale,  of  New  Hampshire, 
and  Bell,  of  Tennessee,  both  afterwards  Presidential 
candidates.  Tom  Corwin  and  Salmon  P.  Chase,  of 
Ohio,  were  also  there  to  hear  the  speech.  Jeffer 
son  Davis,  of  Mississippi;  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  soon 
to  become  the  rival  of  Lincoln  ;  Horace  Mann,  of  Massa 
chusetts;  Thaddeus  Stevens  and  Josiah  R.  Giddings, 
of  Pennsylvania;  Robert  Toombs,  of  Georgia,  and 
Andrew  Johnson,  of  Tennessee,  with  a  dozen  or  more 
others  very  prominent  in  the  Civil  War  and  now  forgot 
ten,  sat  there  and  listened. 

So  the  past  and  the  future  were  listening  with  all 
their  ears  to  this  speech,  which  was  a  great  landmark 


TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

of  the  time.  The  past  was  experienced,  comprehensive, 
cautious,  conservative.  The  future  was  enthusiastic, 
brilliant,  reckless  and  daring. 

Webster  rose  in  his  usual  cool  and  indifferent  way, 
passed  hn's  hand  ,over  his  brow,  surveyed  his  hearers 
witrV-that  master  eye,  thanked  the  gentlemen  who  had 
given  him  the  floor,  and  then  spoke  that  exordium 
which  has  always  been  considered  so  beautiful  and 
which  was  quoted  more  in  full  in  the  second  chapter. 

"  I  wish  to  speak  to-day  not  as  a  Massachusetts  man,  nor 
as  a  northern  man,  but  as  an  American  and  a  member  of  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States.  .  .  .  The  imprisoned  winds 
are  let  loose.  The  East,  the  North,  and  the  stormy  South 
combine  to  throw  the  whole  sea  into  commotion,  to  toss  its 
billows  to  the  sky,  and  disclose  its  profoundest  depths.  .  .  . 
I  have  a  part  to  act,  not  for  my  own  security,  for  I  am  looking 
out  for  no  fragment  upon  which  to  float  away  from  the  wreck, 
if  wreck  there  must  be,  but  for  the  good  of  the  whole,  and  the 
preservation  of  all ;  and  there  is  that  which  will  keep  me  to 
my  duty  during  this  struggle,  whether  the  sun  and  the  stars 
shall  appear,  or  shall  not  appear  for  many  days.  I  speak  to-day 
for  the  preservation  of  the  Union.  '  Hear  me  for  my  cause.' 
I  speak  to-day  out  of  a  solicitous  and  anxious  heart,  for 
the  restoration  to  the  country  of  that  quiet  and  that  harmony, 
which  make  the  blessings  of  this  Union  so  rich  and  dear  to 
us  all." 

He  had  supposed,  Lyman  tells  us,  that  he  would  not 
begin  his  speech  until  about  2  o'clock  in  the  afternoon, 
and  had  intended  to  occupy  the  rest  of  the  day  until 
the  usual  hour  of  adjournment  and  finish  the  next  morn 
ing.  But  when  Senator  Walker  gave  him  the  floor 
so  early,  he  decided  to  curtail  his  speech  to  what  could 
be  gone  over  that  morning.  By  this  arrangement  he 
omitted  several  topics  he  intended  to  discuss ;  and,  in 
deed,  his  speech  impresses  one  as  rather  shorter  than 
was  his  custom. 

When  we  come  to  analyze  the  speech  we  find  that 
most  of  it  is  merely  a  very  complete  statement  of  the 
history  of  the  subject  already  given ;  and  its  accuracy 
has  never  been  successfully  assailed.  As  one  of  the 

472 


THE  SEVENTH  OF  MARCH  SPEECH 

present  generation  reads  on  and  on,  he  wonders  where 
are  all  the  terrible  crimes  and  offences  of  which  the 
Abolitionists  accused  him.  Their  charges  when  boiled 
down  and  stripped  of  their  verbiage  amounted  to  only 
three.  He  would  not  apply  the  Wilmot  Proviso  to 
new  territory  incapable  by  its  climate  and  geography 
of  maintaining  slavery.  He  would  stand  by  the  orig 
inal  Congressional  pledge  that  four  slave  States  might 
be  made  out. of  Texas  if  the  people  of  such  States 
wished  for  slavery.  He  would  pass  a  more  effective 
fugitive  slave  law  to  fulfil  the  guaranty  of  the  Con 
stitution.  f 

On  the  first  point  he  simply  enlarged  on  the  fact, 
which  remained  a  fact,  that  slavery  was  so  unsuited  to 
the  deserts  and  mountains  then  called  New  Mexico, 
that  it  would  never  be  established  there.  It  was  ex 
cluded  by  "  the  law  of  nature,"  he  said,  "  by  physical 
geography,  the  law  of  the  formation  of  the  earth. 
That  law  settles  forever,  with  a  strength  beyond  all 
terms  of  human  enactment,  that  slavery  cannot  exist 
in  California  and  New  Mexico."  It  is  no  more  neces 
sary  to  protect  the  deserts  of  New  Mexico  from  slavery 
than  it  is  necessary  "  to  protect  the  everlasting  snows 
of  Canada  from  the  foot  of  slavery  by  the  overspread 
ing  wing  of  an  act  of  Congress."  Why  should  anyone 
want  "to  reaffirm  an  ordinance  of  nature  or  to  re- 
enact  the  will  of  God  ?  " 

"  I  would  put  in  no  Wilmot  Proviso  for  the  mere  purpose 

>f  a  taunt  or  a  reproach.     I  would  put  into  it  no  evidence  of 

the  votes  of  superior  power  exercised  for  no  purpose  but  to 

wound  the  pride,   whether  a  just  and   a   rational   pride  or  an 

irrational  pride,  of  the  citizens  of  the  southern  States." 

The  Abolitionists  attacked  him  heavily  on  this  point. 
The  Wilmot  Proviso,  absolute,  prohibition  of  slavery 
in  the  territory,  was  their  test,  their  lineup  to  which 
every  one  must  come.  He  was,  they  said,  deliberately 
letting  slavery  into  those  regions.  Slavery  had  existed 
there  under  Mexican  rule;  it  would  go  there  again. 

473 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

| 

Althoug^  neither  rice,  cotton,  sugar  cane  nor  tobacco 

would  grow  there,  yet  slaves  would  be  taken  there  to 
work  the  valuable  mines ;  it  was  the  latitude  of  slavery ; 
southerners  had  boasted  that  slavery  would  be  profit 
able  there;  and  Theodore  Parker  in  his  Fanetiil  Hall 
speech  exhibited  a  printed  advertisement  circulated  in 
Mississippi  of  a  southern  slave  colony  to-  go  to  Cali 
fornia.  But  the  evidence  on  the  other  side  was  stronger. 
Mexico  had  found  slavery  of  so  little  profit  in  those 
regions  that  she  had  had  no  difficulty  in  abolishing  it ; 
travellers  nearly  all  agreed  in  reporting  the  country 
unfit  for  slavery;  the  representative  of  New  Mexico 
at  Washington  said  the  region  was  unfit  for  slavery; 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  California  had  prohibited  slavery 
by  her  Constitution  with  southerners  in  her  convention 
voting  in  favor  of  the  prohibition,  and  within  a  little 
more  than  a  month  Webster  was  supported  in  all  he 
had  said  by  New  Mexico,  in  accordance  with  her  peti 
tion,  adopting  of  her  own  accord  a  constitution  prohib 
iting  slavery. 

The  bargain  or  compromise  with  the  South  on  this 
point  was  a  particularly  fair  one.  The  South  had 
insisted  that  there  should  be  a  declaration  that  Con 
gress  had  no  power  to  prohibit  slavery  in  the  terri 
tories,  and  that  as  the  territories  were  the  common 
property  of  the  whole  Union,  southerners  had  the  right 
to  go  there  with  their  slaves.  Violent  speeches  to  this 
effect  were  constantly  being  made  in  Congress.  Equally 
violent  speeches  were  made  by  Free  Sellers  and  Abo 
litionists  that  Congress  had  the  right  to  prohibit  slavery 
in  the  territories ;  that  it  was  a  national  disgrace  not  to 
do  so;  and  that  it  must  be  done  even  if  it  split  the 
Union  in  two.  "  Very  well,"  said  the  southerners, "  if  you 
do  it  we  will  split  the  Union  in  two."  Clay  and  Web 
ster,  therefore,  said  to  the  southerners,  "  If  you  will 
refrain  from  insisting  on  a  declaration  that  Congress 
has  no  power  over  slavery  in  the  territories,  we  will 
refrain  from  passing  any  Wilmot  Provisos  and  will 

474 


THE  SEVENTH  OF  MARCH  SPEECH 

leave  the  question  of  slavery  in  the  territories  to  be 
settled  by  those  communities  themselves  in  their  own 
way,  according  to  the  principles  of  State  rights  doc 
trine." 

As  to  the  four  slave  States  that  might  be  admitted 
from  Texas,  Webster  simply  read  the  agreement  be 
tween  Congress  and  Texas  when  Texas  was  admitted 
to  the  Union,  that  in  consideration  of  Texas  agreeing 
that  any  States  formed  out  of  her  territory  north  of 
latitude  36°  30'  should  be  free  States,  the  Congress 
agreed  that  four  slave  States  could  be  formed  out  of 
her  territory  south  of  that  line  if  such  States  applying 
for  admission  wished  to  have'' slavery. 

That,  said  Webster,  was  a  contract,  a  pledge,  a 
solemn  engagement;  passed  in  Congress  by  northern 
as  well  as  by  southern  votes.  Without  the  northern 
votes  it  could  not  have  been  passed ;  and  there  was  no 
way,  all  the  Abolition  seceders  in  the  world  to  the  con 
trary  notwithstanding,  "  by  which  the  government  act 
ing  in  good  faith  could  relieve  itself  from  that  pledge 
by  any  honorable  course  of  legislation  whatever." 
Pledges  of  this  sort  had  always  been  sacredly  kept  by 
both  North  and  South  for  fifty  years. 

His  opponents  professed  to  have  a  way  of  wriggling 
out  of  the  pledge,  and  Theodore  Parker  and  Seward  set 
forth  the  metaphysics  of  it  in  a  way  which  would  have 
interested  poor  Calhoun  if  he  had  been  well  and  strong 
enough  to  comprehend  their  subtlety.  What  they  said 
was  in  effect  that  Congress  was  not  really  obliged  to 
admit  any  States  at  all  from  Texas;  the  pledge  did 
not  say  that  Congress  must  admit  such  States.  Con 
gress  could  always  exercise  its  right  of  rejecting  a 
State ;  could,  in  slang  phrase,  lie  down  and  do  nothing. 
No  one,  of  course,  denied  this.  But  if  Congress  did 
decide  to  admit  a  State  from  Texas  and  the  State 
offered  itself  with  slavery,  Congress,  under  the  pledge, 
must  admit  it  with  slavery  or  reject  it  altogether,  "in 
short,  the  pledge  was  a  pledge,  and  the  objection  of  the 

475 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

Abolitionists  and  Free  Soilers  to  Webster  was  princi 
pally  that  he  had  called  attention  to  it,  and  frankly 
admitted  its  force,  instead  of  ignoring  or  minimizing 
it,  or  wriggling  out  of  it,  as  they  were  doing.  Any 
modern  person  at  all  familiar  with  Webster's  mental 
habits  and  methods  who  will  take  the  trouble  to  read 
Parker's  address  and  Seward's  nth  of  March  speech  in 
the  Senate  will  see  at  once  that  to  expect  Webster  to 
take  part  in  such  wrig'gling  was  altogether  out  of  the 
question. 

As  to  the  necessity  for  a  new  fugitive  slave  law  Web 
ster  simply  recited  in  his  expressive  way  the  admitted 
facts  of  the  subject,  that  the  Constitution  had  guaran 
teed  slavery  in  the  southern  States,  that  it  had  guaran 
teed  that  escaping  slaves  should  be  returned,  that  Con 
gress  had  in  1793  passed  a  fugitive  slave  act,  that  the 
Supreme  Court  had  held  that  it  was  the  duty  of  the 
general  government  and  not  of  the  individual  States  to 
return  fugitives,  that  the  northern  States  would  not 
assist  in  returning  them,  and,  therefore,  as  the  fugitive 
slave  act  of  Congress  of  1793  was  not  working  satis 
factorily  a  more  efficient  one  should  be  passed  to  satisfy 
the  requirements  of  the  Constitution  and  of  the  South. 
That  article  of  the  Constitution  was  as  binding  in  law, 
conscience  and  honor  as  any  other  article.  His  oppo 
nents  never  denied  that  this  position  was  sound  in 
law  and  fact.  They  said,  however,  that  it  was  disgrace 
ful  of  him  to  say  so  and  call  attention  to  the  unfor 
tunate  binding  character  of  the  Constitution  in  this 
respect  when  they  had  decided  to  ignore  it  and  by 
agitation  and  aroused  public  feeling  prevent  the  enforce 
ment  of  that  part  of  the  Constitution  and  make  it  prac 
tically  impossible  for  any  fugitive  slave  to  be  returned, 
at  least  from  New  England. 

The  effect  of  the  speech  was  stupendous  and  almost 
equalled  that  of  the  Reply  to  Hayne.  Indeed  it  has 
sometimes  been  said  that  it  exceeded  in  its  effects  the 
Reply  to  Hayne.  The  conservatives  all  over  the  coun- 

476 


THE  SEVENTH  OF  MARCH  SPEECH 

try,  including  at  that  time  a  large  majority  of  the 
people,  were  filled  with  the  most  unbounded  admiration 
for  it.  "  Letters,"  Webster  writes,  "come  in  thick 
and  all  one  way."  They  kept  pouring  in  on  him  for 
six  months,  and  often  twenty  a  day.  The  clamor 
for  copies  was  incredible ;  and  "  two  hundred  thousand," 
he  said,  "  would  not  supply  the  demand."  He  appears 
to  have  kept  printing  them  until  he  could  afford  the 
expense  no  longer,  and  had  to  leave  it  to  be  taken  up 
by  others.6 

Nevertheless,  the  Compromise  measure  hung  fire 
for  nearly  seven  months,  was  debated  through  the  hot 
summer,  and  not  finally  passed  in  all  the  details  of  the 
various  bills  included  in  it  by  a  combination  of  northern 
and  southern,  Whig  and  Democrat  conservative  votes 
until  the  3oth  of  September.  Webster  made  several 
minor  speeches  in  that  time,  urging  the  speedy  passage 
of  the  measure  so  that  the  ordinary  business  of  Con 
gress,  the  appropriation  bills  and  legislation  absolutely 
essential  for  keeping  the  government  alive,  might  be 
passed. 

In  the  midst  of  the  worst  part  of  the  struggle  in 
July  President  Taylor  died.  His  death  was  a  for 
tunate  circumstance  for  the  compromise,  because  he 
and  his  immediate  followers  and  friends  had  been 
opposed  to  the  measure  and  would  have  continued  to 
throw  the  weight  of  executive  influence  against  it. 
President  Taylor's  plan  was  to  admit  California  as  a 
State  with  her  free  Constitution  and  do  nothing  about 
the  New  Mexican  territory;  leave  it  to  become  States 
hereafter.  This  would,  he  thought,  avoid  voting  either 
way  on  the  Wilmot  Proviso ;  and  if  the  Texans  invaded 
New  Mexico,  to  take  possession  of  it  for  slavery,  the 
United  States  troops  would  easily  repulse  them.  That 
this  bloodshed  might  precipitate  a  civil  war  with  the 
South  and  cause  secession  and  a  dissolution  of  the 
Union  he  would  not  admit. 

6  Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xvi,  pp.  535,  567, 
477 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

The  Vice-President,  .Mr.  Fillmore,  who  now  became 
PresideliTrwas  a  conservative  WHig,  of  the  same  opin 
ions  as  Webster,  friendly  to  the  compromise,  and  he 
immediately  .made  Webster  his  Secretary  of  State., 
The  whole  administration  influence  was  now  turned  to 
the  side  of  compromise,  and  materially  assisted  in  its 
final  success.  It  was  a  hard  struggle  in  Washington 
during  that  hot  summer,  beating  off  the  "  theoretic 
fanatical  and  fantastical  Abolitionists,"  persuading  the 
Union  lovers  of  the  South  to  unite  with  the  Union 
lovers  of  the  North  and  quieting  the  fiery  southern 
disunionist  as  fanatical  and  fantastical  as  the  northern 
abolition  extremist  at  whom  he  was  forever  shaking 
his  fist.  Northern  Abolitionists  and  Free  Sellers  and 
southern  disunionists,  said  Webster,  "  are  the  most 
reckless  men,  I  think,  I  ever  met  with  in  public  life." 
He  was  still  a  strong  man  to  endure  such  work  in 
midsummer  at  sixty-eight  years  of  age ;  twenty  letters 
a  day  besides  his  official  correspondence  and  seeing  all 
sorts  of  politicians;  his  eyes  inflamed  and  weak  with 
his  annual  depressing  hay  fever;  and  not  unlikely  the 
beginning  of  the  final  disease  of  the  liver.  "  My  general 
health  is  quite  good,"  he  writes,  "  or  else  I  could  not 
live  under  this  load."  7 

An  important  element  in  the  final  success,  in  Web 
ster's  opinion,  was  the  election  to  Congress  of  Mr. 
Samuel  Eliot,  of  Boston,  to  take  the  place  of  Mr. 
Robert  Winthrop,  who  was  to  take  the  remainder  of 
Webster's  term  in  the  Senate.  Webster  had  stood  so 
entirely  alone  among  the  Massachusetts  representatives 
in  Washington  in  his  advocacy  of  the  compromise,  that 
most  persons,  he  says,  thought  that  he  had  simply 
ruined  himself  with  his  constituency  and  would  no 
longer  have  any  political  standing.  Prominent  south 
ern  leaders,  who  wanted  to  avoid  a  crisis  and  have 
the  compromise  plan  adopted,  feared  that  the  opposition 

T  Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xvi,  pp.  566,  567. 
478 


THE  SEVENTH  OF  MARCH  SPEECH 

of  Boston  and  Massachusetts  would  prevent  the  plan 
from  being  carried  out ;  that  Webster's  influence  alone 
would  not  be  enough.  The  remarkable  ability  of  the 
Abolitionists,  as  writers  and  orators,  caused  this  mis 
apprehension.  They  so  rilled  the  public  eye  and  ear 
with  their  arguments  that  people  naturally  believed 
that  there  was  no  one  else  in  Massachusetts.  But  when 
it  came  to  actual  voting  it  was  found  that  Samuel 
Eliot,  the  compromise  candidate,  overwhelmingly  de 
feated  the  Free  Soil  candidate,  Charles  Sumner.  Eliot 
came  to  Washington  outspoken  and  eloquent  in  favor 
of  compromise,  and  the  southern  leaders,  Webster  tells 
us,  at  once  became  more  hopeful  of  success  and  accepted 
the  compromise.  "  From  the  commencement  of  the 
government,"  says  Webster,  "  no  such  consequences 
have  attended  any  single  election  as  those  that  flowed 
from  Mr.  Eliot's  election."8 

The  strong  majority  feeling  in  Massachusetts  in 
favor  of  the  compromise,  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of  the 
Abolitionists  to  make  appearances  look  the  other  way, 
is  frankly  admitted  by  Theodore  Parker  in  a  charac 
teristic  passage: 

"  You  know  the  indignation  men  felt,  the  sorrow,  the  an 
guish.  I  think  not  a  hundred  prominent  men  in  all  New  Eng 
land  acceded  to  the  speech.  But  such  was  the  power  of  that 
gigantic  intellect,  that  eighteen  days  after  his  speech  nine  hun 
dred  and  eighty-seven  men  of  Boston  sent  him  a  letter,  telling 
him  that  he  had  '  pointed  out '  the  path  of  duty,  convinced  the 
understanding  and  touched  the  conscience  of  a  nation."  (Dis 
course  on  Death  of  Daniel  Webster,  p.  54.) 

Of  those  nine  hundred  and  eighty-seven  signers 
there  were  lawyers  like  Rufus  Choate  and  B.  R.  Curtis, 
numerous  men  of  business  and  commerce,  and  Pres- 
cott,  the  historian,  almost  the  only  one  of  the  eminent 
literary  men  of  Massachusetts  who  favored  the  compro- 

8  Curtis,  vol.  ii,  p.  474.  Longfellow,  a  Free  Soiler  and 
Abolitionist,  records  Eliot  at  this  time  as  a  "  dark  disgrace " 
to  Boston.  (Longfellow,  Journal,  vol.  ii,  p.  177.) 

479 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

mise.  From  other  neighboring  towns  there  were  simi 
lar  tokens  of  approval;  and  in  the  country  at  large 
the  approval  was  enormous  and  upheld  the  compromise 
for  nearly  a  decade.  In  fact  the  Abolitionists  and  Free 
Soilers  were  bowled  out  by  the  speech  of  one  man; 
and  their  historians  hardly  know  what  to  say  about  it. 
On  one  page  they  say  he  stood  alone  in  disgrace ;  the 
whole  North  was  against  himi;  and  on  the  next  page 
they  complain  that  he  had  nearly  ruined  the  cause  of 
freedom,  and  rallied  to  the  compromise  all  the  Hunkers, 
rascals,  conservatives  and  mossbacks  of  the  whole 
country. 

So  the  great  measure  went  slowly  through  its 
stages  with  its  mission  of  peace,  for  awhile  at  least; 
and  in  the  middle  of  September  Webster  reports  "  a 
great  change  in  men's  feelings  here  in  favor  of  concilia 
tion  and  harmony  and  peace.  Men  are  a  great  deal 
happier  than  they  were  six  months  ago,  and  crimination 
and  recrimination  are  no  longer  the  order  of  the  day."  9 

It  was  a  great,  a  momentous  event,  the  compromise 
of  1850;  a  wonderful  instance  of  that  peculiar  talent  of 
Henry  Clay  which  was  the  genius  and  tact  of  the 
diplomatist,  the  shrewdness  of  the  ordinary  State  poli 
tician,  the  foresight  of  the  statesman  and  the  persuasive 
power  of  the  orator.  It  is  hard  to  conceive  of  anyone 
else  at  that  time  who  could  originate  a  plan  which  so 
skilfully  played  back  and  forth  between  violent  con 
flicting  interests  and  who  was  at  the  same  time  so 
pre-eminently  able  to  touch  all  the  Congressional  strings 
that  were  so  important.  Webster  could  advocate  it  in 
a  speech  which  brought  the  country  at  large  to  its 
support  and  which  drew  attention  to  himself.  But 
it  is  doubtful  if  Webster  would  have  been  willing  to 
master  the  tiresome  details  by  which  Clay  engineered 
it  in  Congress. 

The  conservative  people  of  both  parties  all  over  the 

6  Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xvi,  p.  56?- 
480 


THE  SEVENTH  OF  MARCH  SPEECH 

country,  whose  support  and  influence  had  carried  the 
compromise,  believed  in  it  because  it  was  acceptable 
to  the  South,  had  stopped  the  spread  of  slavery  and  of 
the  slave  power  for  the  time  being,  and  had  prevented 
civil  war  and  a  break-up  of  the  Union.  The  status  of 
all  American  territory  with  regard  to  slavery  was  now, 
they  believed,  fixed;  and  some  were  inclined  to  think 
permanently  fixed  (i)  by  the  agreement  annexing 
Texas  which  allowed  four  States  to  be  admitted  from 
that  region  south  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  line  of 
36°  30',  with  or  without  slavery,  as  the  people  of  each 
State  might  desire;  (2)  by  the  admission  of  California 
as  a  free  State  and  the  organization  of  the  territories 
of  Utah  and  New  Mexico  without  any  provision  for  or 
against  slavery;  (3)  by  the  original  Missouri  Compro 
mise  forbidding  slavery  north  of  36°  30'  north  latitude  ; 
(4)  by  excluding  the  slave  trade  from  the  District  of 
Columbia;  (5)  by  a  new  act  for  the  return  of  fugitive 
slaves. 

Those  who  thought  the  compromise  permanent  were 
of  course  mistaken;  for  the  duration  of  the  plan  de 
pended  upon  acts  of  Congress  which  might  be  repealed 
by  any  subsequent  Congress.  It  was  not  an  amendment 
to  the  Constitution.  But  it  was  as  permanent  as  any 
thing  of  the  kind,  any  act  of  Congress  could  have  been 
at  that  time.  It  was  as  permanent  as  anything  the 
Free  Soilers  would  have  done ;  for  if  they  had  applied 
their  favorite  Wilmot  Proviso  to  the  territories  they 
would  have  done  it  by  a  mere  act  of  Congress  which 
might  be  repealed  at  any  time. 

Webster   believed   that   the    compromise    had    put  ' 
down  disunion  "at  least  for  the  present,  and  I  hope    ! 
for   a   long   time."10     But   even   if  he   and   Clay   had 
known  that  the  compromise  would  last  only  ten  years, 
they  would  have  gone  on  with  it  all  the  same.     Under 
the  circumstances  of  the  time  temporary  postponement 

"Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xvi,  p.  568. 
3i  481 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

of  the  crisis,  even  for  the  shortest  time,  was  vitally 
important. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Missouri  Compromise  it 
self,  the  most  stable  as  was  supposed  of  all,  was  some 
years  afterwards  repealed,  and  Kansas  thrown  open  to 
competition  for  slavery,  an  event  which  had  much  to 
do  with  bringing  on  the  Civil  War.  The  Clay  Compro 
mise  of  1850  was  admittedly  a  stop-gap,  a  desperate 
measure  in  a  dangerous  crisis,  and  must  be  judged  by 
its  own  peculiar  circumstances.  The  Free  Soilers  de 
nounced  it  in  1850.  But  ten  years  afterwards  when 
they  had  become  more  matured  in  politics  they  at 
tempted  an  almost  exactly  similar  compromise  with  the 
South  in  order  to  stop  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War. 

There  are  three  important  points  to  remember: 

First,  Was  the  North  ready  for  a  civil  war  in  1850, 
and  could  it  then  have  conquered  the  South,  saved  the 
Union,  and  abolished  slavery?  Ten  years  later,  with 
the  North  stronger  in  population  and  wealth,  the  South 
weaker,  and  the  Republican  party  organized  to  save 
the  Union  and  in  possession  of  the  government,  the  re 
sult  of  actual  civil  war  was  long  doubtful.  The  north 
ern  Democrats  were  willing  that  the  South  should  peace 
fully  secede ;  the  Abolitionists  were  of  the  same  mind ; 
General  Scott,  the  head  of  the  army,  was  drawing  up 
plans  for  dividing  the  country  into  several  independent 
confederacies.  What  would  have  been  the  result  in 
1850  with  these  elements  of  dissolution  stronger  and 
the  forces  for  Union  weaker  than  in  1861  ?  If  you  say 
that  the  North  under  those  circumstances  of  1850 
could  not  have  performed  the  triple  task  of  conquering 
the  South,  saving  the  Union  and  abolishing  slavery, 
then  the  Clay  Compromise  was  a  wise  policy ;  and  that 
was  the  answer  of  the  conservatives. 

Second,  Would  it  have  been  better  to  have  forced 
the  issue,  scorned  a  compromise  with  slavery,  incensed 
southern  feeling  by  declaring  slavery  prohibited  in  all 
new  territory  in  the  faith  that  the  South  had  no  real 

482 


THE  SEVENTH  OF  MARCH  SPEECH 

intention  of  rebelling  or  seceding,  and  that  there  would 
be  no  civil  war?  If  you  say  yes,  then  the  Clay  Com 
promise  was  a  mistake ;  and  this  was  the  answer  of  the 
Free  Soilers  and  Abolitionists  who  denounced  Webster's 
course. 

Third,  Would  it  have  been  better  to  have  forced  the 
issue,  scorned  a  compromise  with  slavery,  offended  the 
South  by  declaring  slavery  prohibited  in  all  new  terri 
tory,  and  welcome  rebellion  by  the  South,  civil  war  and 
an  attempt  to  break  up  the  Union  in  the  faith  that  in  the 
confusion  and  contest  freedom  at  least  would  triumph 
and  slavery  be  abolished,  although  the  Union  might 
be  broken  up  and  the  Constitution  destroyed?  If  you 
say  yes,  then  the  Clay  Compromise  was  a  mistake;  and 
this  was  the  answer  of  the  extreme  Abolitionists  who 
denounced  Webster's  course. 

Webster  had  effected  a  combination  of  conservative 
Whigs  and  conservative  Democrats  in  both  the  South 
and  the  North.  His.  strength,  and  at  times,  in  a  sense, 
his  weakness,  in  politics  had  always  been  his  inde 
pendence  ;  j}isjndifference  to  strict  party,  requirements. 
So  now  in  combining  Democrats  with  Whigs,  his  ene 
mies  said  that  he  was  merely  making  a  bid  for  the 
Presidency  from  his  overweening  ambition  for  that 
office.  If  that  were  his  motive  he  chose  a  poor  way 
to  carry  it  out.  No  man  can  attain  the  Presidency, 
or  even  a  nomination  for  it,  by  going  half-way  into  the 
enemy's  camp.  The  Democrats  would  not  nominate 
him  because  he  was  not  of  their  faith ;  and  the  Whigs 
would  not  nominate  him  because  half  the  party  regarded  • 
him  as  a  renegade.  In  the  next  Whig  nominating  con-  : 
vention  he  did  not  get  a  single  southern  Whig  vote  \ 
in  53  ballots,  although  it  was  for  these  southern  votes, 
the  Abolitionists  said,  that  he  had  made  his  Seventh  of 
March  speech. 

One  of  the  first  instances  of  approval  he  received, 
and  not  very  creditable  to  his  financial  reputation,  was 
a  letter  from  Mr.  W.  W.  Corcoran,  of  Washington, 

483 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

cancelling  a  note  Webster  had  given  for  money  bor 
rowed  from  him,  and  in  addition  making  Webster  a 
present  of  money.  Cancelled  note  and  present 
amounted  to  about  $7000.  This  was  done  out  of  ad 
miration  for  the  Seventh  of  March  speech.  Webster 
accepted,  in  a  letter  of  thanks,  both  the  release  of  the 
debt  and  the  present.11 

As  soon  as  the  violent  anti-slavery  people  had  re 
covered  a  little  from  their  surprise,  they  poured  out  a 
flood  of  denunciation  upon  Webster,  and  held  meetings 
for  the  purpose.  The  Constitution  was,  they  said,  the 
cause  of  all  the  evil.  It  was  not  in  any  danger.  Would 
that  it  were!  The  southern  slave-holders  knew  and 
valued  it.  There  was  not  the  slightest  danger  of  their 
rebelling  or  breaking  up  the  Union.  They  would  hold 
tight  to  the  Constitution  because  it  protected  their 
property.  If  they  left  the  Union  they  would  lose  all 
their  slaves  and  they  would  immediately  come  back 
again. 

"  The  southern  men,"  said  Parker,  "  know  well,  that  if 
the  Union  were  dissolved,  their  riches  would  take  to  itself 
legs  and  run  away, — or  firebrands,  and  make  a  St.  Domingo  out 
of  California !  They  cast  off  the  North !  They  set  up  for 
themselves!  Tush!  tush!  Fear  boys  with  bugs."  (Discourse 
on  Death  of  Webster,  p.  63.) 

James  Russell  Lowell,  then  a  young  Free  Soil  politi 
cal  writer,  had  for  some  time  been  assailing  Webster 
as  a  statesman  who  had  communicated  no  impulse  to 
any  of  the  great  ideas  of  the  century,  as  a  statesman 
whose  soul  had  been  absorbed  in  tariff,  banks  and  Con 
stitution  instead  of  devoting  himself  to  the  freedom 
of  the  future  and  of  a  down-trodden  race.  When  it 
came,  however,  to  telling  exactly  what  Webster  should 
have  done  or  should  do,  he  was  like  all  the  Free  Soilers 
and  Abolitionists,  a  trifle  vague,  and  had  to  fall  back  on 
spread-eagle  oratory.  Webster,  he  said,  should  be  "  a 

"Lodge,  Life  of  Webster,  p.  357,  note. 
484 


THE  SEVENTH  OF  MARCH  SPEECH 

conductor  to  gather  from  every  part  of  the  cloud  of 
popular  indignation  the  scattered  electricity,  which 
would  waste  itself  in  heat  lightning,  and,  grasping  it 
in  one  huge  thunderbolt,  let  it  fall  like  the  messenger 
of  an  angry  god  among  the  triflers  in  the  capitol."  12 

Longfellow  on  reading  the  7th  of  March  speech  en 
tered  in  his  diary,  "Is  it  possible?  Is  this  the  Titan 
who  hurled  mountains  at  Hayne  years  ago?  .  .  . 
Fallen,  fallen,  fallen  from  his  high  estate  is  the  univer 
sal  cry  in  various  phraseology.  Yet  what  has  there 
been  in  Webster's  life  to  lead  us  to  think  that  he  would 
take  high  moral  ground  on  this  slavery  question?" 
Charles  Sumner,  then  a  brilliant  young  man,  a  great 
friend  of  Longfellow.,  often  walking  out  to  Cambridge 
to  dine  v/ith  him,  but  banished,  because  he  was  a  Free 
Soiler,  from  the  fashionable  life  of  Boston,  in  which 
he  had  formerly  moved  with  so  much  distinction,  also 
joined  in  the  chorus  against  Webster,  feeling  sadly, 
Longfellow  says,  about  the  speech.  Emerson,  who  was 
then  dipping  into  politics  and  on  the  stump  so  far  as 
was  possible  for  a  philosopher,  also  took  his  fling  at 
Webster.  "  Every  drop  of  blood  in  that  man's  veins," 
he  said,  "  has  eyes  that  look  downward."  13 

They  attacked  him  as  if  he  were  approving  of 
slavery,  which  he  certainly  was  not  doing.  They  dis 
torted  passages.  The  passage,  for  example,  where  he 
speaks  of  the  New  Testament  as  nowhere  prohibiting 
slavery,  they  use  as  if  he  were  advocating  slavery.  But 
he  was  merely  reviewing  the  history  of  slavery  in  the 
past,  and  stating  the  facts,  the  unfortunate  facts  that 
had  put  slavery  in  the  Constitution  and  brought  us  to  a 
crisis  of  such  difficulty  and  danger. 

Whittier's  poem  calling  him,  in  the  old  Scripture 
phrase,  Ichabod,  "  Where  is  the  glory,  for  the  glory 
hath  departed  from  Israel,"  described  the  New  England 

12  Scudder,  Life  of  Lowell,  vol.  i,  pp.  227,  233. 

13  Longfellow's  Diary,  volt  ii,  pp.   162,   181,   195. 

485 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

literary  feeling  of  this  ignominious  fall  of  the  mighty 
one  as  it  was  supposed  to  be. 

"  So  fallen  !     So  lost !  the  light  withdrawn 

Which  once  he  wore  ! 
The  glory  from  his  gray  hairs  gone 
Forevermore ! 

"  Revile  him  not — the  Tempter  hath 

A  snare  for  all. 

And  pitying,  not  scorn  and  wrath, 
Befit  his  fall ! 

"Oh,  dumb  be  passion's  stormy  rage, 

When  he  who  might 

Have  lighted  up  and  led  his  age 

Falls  back  in  night. 

"Let  not  the  land  once  proud  of  him 

Insult  him  now, 

Nor  brand  with  deeper  shame  his  dim 
Dishonored  brow." 


Beautiful  verse  it  is ;  terrible  it  was  called  at  the 
time ;  probably  as  fine  a  specimen  of  scorn  as  can  be 
found  in  the  language. 

"  I  saw  as  I  wrote,"  said  W'hittier,  "  with  painful  clearness 
its  (the  speech's)  sure  results, — the  Slave  Power  arrogant 
and  defiant,  strengthened  and  encouraged  to  carry  out  its 
scheme  for  the  extension  of  its  baleful  system,  or  the  dissolu 
tion  of  the  Union,  the  guarantees  of  personal  liberty  in  the 
free  States  broken  down,  and  the  whole  country  made  the 
hunting  ground  of  slave  catchers.  In  the  horror  of  such  a 
vision,  so  soon  fearfully  fulfilled,  if  one  spoke  at  all,  he  could 
only  speak  in  tones  of  stern  and  sorrowful  rebuke."  (Car 
penter's  Whittier,  pp.  220,  221.) 

In  1880,  when  Webster  had  been  in  his  grave  at 
Marshfield  by  the  sea  for  nearly  thirty  years,  Whittier 
wrote  a  longer  poem  called  "  The  Lost  Occasion."  Less 
denunciatory  than  Ichabod,  it  takes  at  some  length  the 
ground  that  the  great  orator  missed  a  golden  oppor 
tunity. 

486 


THE  SEVENTH  OF  MARCH  SPEECH 

"  Ah,  cruel  Fate  that  closed  to  thee, 
Oh,  sleeper  by  the  northern  sea, 
The  gates  of  opportunity." 

What  the  opportunity  was  is  left  poetically  vague. 
But  apparently  the  sleeper  should  have  insisted  on 
expressly  prohibiting  slavery  in  a  region  where  it  could 
not  exist,  merely  as  an  insult  to  the  South ;  should  have 
declared  that  the  pledge  about  Texas  should  not  be  kept, 
and  should  have  refused  to  pass  any  law  or  assist  in  any 
way  the  return  of  fugitive  slaves  as  guaranteed  by  the 
Constitution — in  short,  should  have  violated  and  re 
pudiated  all  his  past,  stultified  his  intelligence,  and 
gone  in  for  a  general  smash-up  in  civil  war  in  the  vague 
hope  that,  whatever  else  might  be  ruined,  the  everlast 
ing  African  would  emerge  from  the  confusion  a  free 
man. 

In  the  closing  verses  the  poet  softens  a  little  and 
concludes  that  after  all,  when  the  Civil  War  really  did 
come  in  1861,  the  sleeper  would  have  been  willing  to 
take  chances  in  that  smash-up. 

"  Wise  men  and  strong  we  did  not  lack ; 
But  still  with  memory  turning  back, 
In  the  dark  hours  we  thought  of  thee, 
And  thy  lone  grave  beside  the  sea." 

That,  no  doubt,  was  true.  Webster  would,  of 
course,  have  been  for  the  Union  in  1861.  His  son 
Fletcher  went  to  the  war  as  colonel  of  the  Twelfth 
Massachusetts  and  was  killed  at  the  Battle  of  Manassas. 

One  of  the  poet's  biographers  reports  that  "  those 
whom  Whittier  knew  best  in  later  life  relate  that  he 
came  eventually  to  feel  that  Webster  was  perhaps  right, 
and  he  wrong;  that  compromise  meant  weary  years  of 
waiting,  but  that  the  further  and  consistent  pursuit  of 
such  a  policy  might  have  successfully  avoided  the  evils 
of  war  and  of  reconstruction." 

Webster's  literary  power,  his  unrivalled  command 
of  the  aptest  language  for  oratory,  debate  and  law, 

487 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

were,  as  we  have  seen,  a  part  of  that  remarkable  literary 
movement  in  New  England  to  which  the  Longfellows 
and  Whittiers  belonged.  But  Webster  never  seems 
to  have  associated  familiarly  with  any  of  these  people. 
He  apparently  had  hardly  more  than  a  bowing  acquaint 
ance  with  them.  There  are  no  familiar  letters  between 
him  and  them,  and  such  letters  would  surely  have  been 
both  remarkable  and  valuable. 

His  familiar  associates  seem  always  to  have  been 
of  a  totally  different  set;  the  lawyers,  the  politicians, 
the  rich  merchants  and  manufacturers ;  and  now  for 
some  time,  as  Senator  Lodge  expresses  it,  he  had  fallen 
into  bad  hands,  which,  being  interpreted,  means  that 
he  had  joined  the  conservative  Whigs  instead  of  the 
radical  Whigs.  His  old  friend  Jeremiah  Mason  was 
dead.  Mr.  Peter  Harvey,  of  Boston;  Mr.  Franklin 
Haven,  sub-treasurer  at  Boston;  Mr.  Edward  Curtis, 
Mr.  George  Ticknor  Curtis,  Mr.  Hiram  Ketchum  and 
Mr.  Richard  Blatchford,  of  New  York;  Samuel  Law 
rence,  the  Appletons,  James  K.  Mills,  Samuel  Eliot, 
Mr.  Fearing,  and  no  doubt  also  many  of  the  forty  who 
had  subscribed  his  pension,  were  among  his  intimates. 
With  Mr.  Blatchford  he  was  very  intimate,  and  some 
times  wrote  to  him  every  day.  Mr.  Edward  Curtis,  of 
New  York,  was  one  of  his  most  confidential  advisers  in 
politics,  as  Thurlow  Weed  tells  us  in  his  memoirs.  Mr. 
Peter  Harvey  and  Mr.  Edward  Curtis  were  with  him 
the  night  before  the  7th  of  March  speech,  and  he 
consulted  with  them  about  it  and  declared  his  resolution, 
as  he  put  it,  "  to  push  my  skiff  from  the  shore  alone." 

There  were  Abolitionists  in  the  country  who  were 
not  as  refined  in  their  methods  as  those  of  New  Eng 
land,  and  among  these  it  seemed  proper  enough  to 
"  kill  off  "  Webster  and  ruin  his  influence  on  the  side  of 
compromise  by  means  of  the  ancient  method  of  scan 
dals  with  women.  From  the  year  1850  date  those 
charges  that  he  was  a  gross  and  unscrupulous  libertine, 

14  Curtis,  vol.  ii,  p.  474- 


THE  SEVENTH  OF  MARCH  SPEECH 

and  these  have  been  repeated  and  turned  into  universal 
tradition  which  both  Von  Hoist  and  Mr.  Rhodes  put 
into  their  histories  of  the  United  States,  and  anyone 
who  even  doubts  whether  the  offences  were  quite  as 
bad  as  represented  is  laughed  at  for  his  lack  of  knowl 
edge  of  the  world. 

They  were  made  public,  as  we  learn  from  Mr. 
Wilkinson's  excellent  volume,  by  the  efforts  of  a  Mrs. 
Swisshelm,  a  newspaper  correspondent  in  Washington 
and  an  Abolitionist.  She  herself  has  said  that  up  to  the 
time  of  the  7th  of  March  speech,  "  in  all  the  rough 
and  tumble  of  political  strife,  I  had  never  heard  his 
private  character  assailed."  Suddenly  she  learns  of 
his  low  debauchery,  and  from  whom?  From  the  Abo 
litionists,  if  you  please,  and  by  them  she  is  urged  to 
put  it  in  the  newspapers.  She  wrote  an  article  on  the 
subject  which  was  circulated  with  zealous  eagerness 
by  the  Abolitionists  and  equally  circulated  by  the  Whig 
press,  which  denied  its  assertions.  Her  agency  in  the 
matter  was  well  known,  and  it  became  a  standing  conun 
drum  among  Free  Soilers :  "  Why  is  Daniel  Webster 
like  Sisera?  Because  he  was  killed  by  a  woman."  At 
a  Free  Soil  meeting  in  Pittsburg,  Henry  Wilson,  the 
chairman,  came  down  from  the  platform  to  be  intro 
duced  to  her  and  "  take  the  hand  of  the  woman  who 
killed  Daniel  Webster." 

Of  names,  dates,  places,  details,  evidence,  proof, 
there  is  absolutely  none.  There  never  is  in  a  sacred 
tradition.  No  one  ever  succeeded  in  substantiating 
anything.  Many  years  before  there  had  been  some 
talk  about  two  English  people,  a  man  and  his  wife,  of 
cultivated  minds,  who  lived  in  the  same  apartment 
house  with  Webster  in  Washington.  Webster  was 
fond  of  talking  with  them  both;  and  as  politics  were 
rough  there  was  a  tale  circulated  in  Washington  which 
was  abundantly  disproved.  No  attention  was  paid  to 
it  in  Boston,  where  the  lady  was  received  among  Web 
ster's  friends,  and  perfectly  innocent  letters  from  her 

489 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

and  her  husband  were  found  among  Webster's  papers 
after  his  death.  He  was  also  intimate  with  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Blake.  They  were  often  at  his  house;  he  wrote 
numerous  letters  to  Mrs.  Blake  which  can  be  read  in 
his  works.  He  was  fond  of  bright  women  who  read 
and  improved  their  minds.  He  was  a  good  deal  of  a 
ladies'  man  in  general  society ;  went  out  of  his  way 
to  amuse  them  with  jokes  and  raillery ;  and  some  years 
ago  there  were  not  a  few  elderly  ladies  still  alive  who 
treasured  compliments  he  had  paid  them.  It  is  said  that 
there  were  quite  a  number,  each  of  whom  insisted  that 
to  her  alone  had  he  applied  the  line  from  Horace  about 
the  beautiful  daughter  of  a  still  more  beautiful  mother. 
His  intimacy  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Ticknor  was  very 
much  the  same  in  the  way  of  letters  and  friendliness  as 
that  with  the  Blakes.  The  malicious  could  have  used 
one  instance  as  well  as  any  of  the  others.  There  seems 
to  have  been  absolutely  nothing  that  anyone  regarded 
until  the  sudden  Swisshelm  discovery  in  1850,  when 
Webster  was  sixty-eight  years  old. 

But  the  Abolitionists  were  disappointed  even  in 
that  wonderful  discovery;  for  it  sometimes  takes  more 
than  one  irresponsible  woman  to  kill  a  statesman.  They 
professed  to  believe  that  he  would  soon  apologize  for 
his  7th  of  March  speech  or  attempt  to  qualify  or 
explain  it  away.  As  the  apology  did  not  come,  they 
insisted  that  nevertheless  he  was  conscience-stricken 
and  ashamed  and  merely  succeeded  in  keeping  up  ap 
pearances;  and  their  historians  keep  repeating  these 
assertions.  He  never,  however,  wavered  from  his  posi 
tion  for  an  instant,  but  went  on  advocating  the  compro 
mise  and  insisting  that  it  must  be  carried  out  to  the  letter. 

"We  shall  have  a  fight,  with  the  Abolitionists  under  the 
lead,  I  fear,  of  Mr.  Seward;  and  a  fight,  too,  with  the  violent 
party  of  the  South  under  the  lead  of  Mr.  Calhoun.  But  I  shall 
stand  on  the  principle  of  my  speech  to  the  end;  and  we  shall 
beat  them,  and  the  Union  party  will  triumph.  ...  If  neces 
sary  I  will  take  the  stump  in  every  village  in  New  England." 
(Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xvi,  p.  537.) 

490 


THE  SEVENTH  OF  MARCH  SPEECH 

He  visited  Boston  soon  after  the  7th  of  March 
speech,  and  if  the  radicals  expected  him  to  be  treated 
with  marked  disrespect  they  were  again  disappointed. 
He  was  received  with  the  old  respect  due  to  his  charac 
ter  and  to  a  Senator  of  the  United  States.  But  he  told 
them  plainly  that  they  need  expect  no  backward  steps 
from  him. 

For  a  year  and  a  half  afterwards  he  made  the  great 
est  exertions  to  help  the  Compromise  party.  He  went 
to  Virginia,  and  in  a  speech  at  Capon  Springs  told  the 
southerners  that  the  Constitution  guaranteed  the  exist 
ence  of  slavery  in  the  old  southern  States,  that  they 
were  constitutionally  entitled  to  have  their  fugitive 
slaves  returned,  and  he  even  went  so  far  as  to  say 
that  if  the  North  violated  the  Constitution  in  that  par 
ticular  they  could  not  complain  if  the  South  left  the 
Union. 

He  made  speeches  all  over  the  eastern  part  of  the 
country — at  New  York,  Philadelphia,  Boston,  Buffalo, 
and  the  towns  of  northern  New  York — and  wrote  in 
numerable  letters.  He  even  spoke  in  Syracuse,  "  that 
laboratory  of  Abolitionism,  libel  and  treason,"  as  he 
called  it.  This  Syracuse  speech,  recently  published  in 
the  National  Edition  of  his  works,  is,  as  an  address 
to  a  very  hostile  community,  a  model  of  tact,  good 
humor,  and  forcefulness.  He  brought  out  strongly  the 
point  that  the  adoption  by  New  Mexico  of  a  constitu 
tion  prohibiting  slavery  was  another  proof  of  the  use- 
lessness  of  offending  the  South  by  applying  the  Wilmot 
Proviso  to  all  that  region.  He  argued  in  all  these 
speeches  that  without  the  compromise  there  would  have 
been  a  civil  war,  that  six  or  seven  southern  States  were 
preparing  to  secede,  and  that  Texas,  claiming  the  whole 
of  New  Mexico,  would  have  marched  troops  into  it 
and  precipitated  the  first  bloodshed  if  her  boundaries 
had  not  been  settled  by  the  compromise. 

His  efforts  in  all  this  work  were  far  greater  than  he 
had  put  in  the  7th  of  March  speech.  He  described  him- 

49i 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

self  at  the  end  as  talked  out  and  written  out  and  without 
a  fresh  idea  left.  It  was  heavy  work  for  a  man  sixty- 
nine  years  old  and  no  longer  well.  Other  prominent 
men,  believers  in  the  compromise,  were  doing  the  same. 
President  Fillmore  made  a  tour  of  speeches  for  the 
compromise  in  northern  New  York;  and  the  object  of 
all  these  conservative  statesmen  was  to  bring  the  people 
to  such  a  state  of  mind  that  they  would  respect  the 
compromise  and  prevent  its  repeal  or  a  breach  of  it. 
At  the  end  of  two  years  they  considered  their  work 
largely  accomplished,  civil  war  prevented,  old  sores 
somewhat  healed,  and  the  compromise  in  no  clanger  of 
immediate  dissolution.  This  work  was  temporary  in  its 
results,  of  course,  but  to  accuse  these  men  of  bad  faith, 
treachery  to  the  cause  of  freedom,  or  contemptible 
motives,  as  the  extremists  have  done,  is  too  much  like 
stupidity  and  narrowness. 

Meantime,  the  radicals  were  preaching  sermons  and 
passing  resolutions  that  "  Constitution  or  no  Consti 
tution,  law  or  no  law,  we  will  not  allow  a  fugitive  slave 
to  be  taken  from  Massachusetts ;  "  and  soon  the  Boston 
mob  broke  into  the  United  States  Court  House  and 
rescued  an  alleged  fugitive  slave  from  the  custody 
of  an  officer.  But  the  final  effect  of  all  this  sort  of 
thing  belongs  to  a  period  after  Webster's  death. 

The  new  fugitive  slave  act  of  Congress  passed  in 
fulfilment  of  the  Clay  compromise,  and  to  carry  out  the 
provision  on  that  subject  in  the  Constitution,  was  not 
a  good  one.  Webster  tried  to  have  it  provide  for  trial 
by  jury,  but  failed.  The  absence  of  trial  by  jury,  the 
provision  which  prohibited  the  supposed  runaway  from 
testifying,  and  other  provisions  in  favor  of  the  man- 
hunter,  gave  the  Abolitionists  a  handle  against  it.  It 
was  the  weak  part  of  the  compromise.  They  said  it 
could  be  used  to  kidnap  persons  who  had  never  been 
slaves.  If  the  law  had  been  made  a  little  more  in  favor 
o'f  the  fugitive  and  less  in  favor  of  the  hunter  it  would 
have  been  a  great  help  to  the  compromise.  But  the 

492 


THE  SEVENTH  OF  MARCH  SPEECH 

compromisers  had  to  accept  it  as  it  was  and  enforce  it. 
Any  fugitive  slave  law  is  necessarily  odious  and  detest 
able,  no  matter  how  "  good  "  it  may  be  made.  Instances 
of  the  reclamation  of  slaves,  which  had  been  compara 
tively  rare  in  the  whole  previous  history  of  the  country, 
now  became  more  numerous,  and  the  knowledge  of  them 
made  converts  to  Abolitionism  and  Free  Soil  doctrines 
and  to  semi-Abolitionism  and  semi-Free  Soil  doctrines, 
and  all  the  shades  of  opinion  that  were  building  up  the 
party  that  carried  through  the  Civil  War.  In  the  next 
few  years  this  new  fugitive  slave  law  is  believed  to 
have  done  more  to  build  up  the  Abolitionists  than  any 
other  one  cause  that  can  be  named.  Webster  and 
the  conservatives,  however,  insisted  that  having  been 
passed  in  good  faith  as  part  of  the  compromise  and 
agreement  with  the  South,  it  must  be  enforced.  This 
was  an  unfortunate  predicament  for  them;  and  in  the 
next  Presidential  election  of  1852,  the  Whig  party 
in  attempting  to  uphold  this  fugitive  slave  law  went  to 
pieces,  and  passed  into  history.  Slavery  being  in  the 
Constitution,  nothing  but  a  war  would  take  it  out. 

The  differences  between  the  parties  at  this  time 
seem  now  somewhat  slender,  although  at  the  time  they 
were  deemed  very  essential.  Charles  Sumner,  for  ex 
ample,  a  Free  Soiler,  declared  himself  "  a  Unionist  and 
a  Constitutionalist,"  that  he  would  stay  within  the 
Constitution  and  within  the  law.  This  would  seem  to 
differentiate  him  from  the  Abolitionists;  but  at  the 
same  time  he  made  speeches  which  he  admitted  were 
intended  to  "  create  a  public  sentiment  which  would 
render  the  enforcement  of  the  fugitive  slave  law  impos 
sible."  15  Except  in  form  there  was  little  difference 
between  him  and  the  Abolitionists  who  consigned  the 
Constitution  to  hell. 

Sumner  was  now  elected  to  the  Senate  in. Webster's 
place  by  an  unexpected  fusion  of  Free  Soilers  and 
regulation  Democrats  in  the  Massachusetts  Legislature. 

"Life  of  Sumner,  pp.  102,  128. 
493 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

Anti-slavery  Whigs  and  Democrats  in  New  Hampshire 
sent  another  radical  Senator,  John  Hale,  to  Washing 
ton;  and  the  Free  Soilers  and  Democrats  sent  Salmon 
P.  Chase  to  the  Senate. 

Webster,  it  seems,  had  broken  off  from  the  Whig  State 
Committee  of  Massachusetts  and  would  no  longer  leave 
his  interests  in  their  hands.  They  were  too  strongly 
Abolitionist,  he  thought,  and  had  separated  themselves 
from  the  cause  of  the  Union  as  well  as  from  the  other 
Whigs  of  the  country.  They  had  opposed  national 
settlement  and  national  harmony,  and  had  courted 
Abolitionists  until  the  Abolitionists  would  soon 
become  their  masters.  "  The  Union  Whigs,  Tariff 
Whigs,  Internal  Improvement  Whigs  and  Constitu 
tional  Whigs,"  he  writes,  "  are  afraid,  all  over  the 
South,  to  connect  themselves  with  us,  because  they  say 
that  on  the  question  of  all  others,  the  most  important 
to  them,  they  have  as  little,  indeed  less  to*  expect  from 
Massachusetts  Whigs,  than  from  Massachusetts  Demo 
crats."  He  recommended  calling  a  meeting  of  Union 
men  of  all  parties  in  Massachusetts.16 

Sumner,  who  had  so  quickly  stepped  into  Webster's 
place  to  undo  his  work  as  soon  as  possible,  was  in 
argumentative  ability  and  oratory  well  worthy  of  the 
position.  Powerful  looking  and  handsome ;  full  of  emo 
tion  and  sentiment;  like  Webster,  a  lover  of  literature 
and  knowledge;  a  man  of  refined  taste  and  of  the 
world ;  he,  nevertheless,  had  none  of  Webster's  personal 
attractiveness.  He  had  no  love  of  nature,  of  farms, 
of  the  ocean  and  boats,  of  sport,  of  animals,  of  chil 
dren  and  women,  and  all  that  many-sidedness  which 
had  broadened  Webster  and  given  him  such  a  power 
ful  hold  on  life  and  statesmanship.  Worst  of  all, 
Sumner  lacked  Webster's  genial  sense  of  humor.  That 
alone  might  have  saved  him  from  the  narrow  mistakes, 
crabbed  views,  and  tactless  animosities  of  his  later  years, 
especially  in  the  reconstruction  period. 

"Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xvi,  pp.  611,  613,  614. 
494 


XIX 

LAST   DAYS   OF    WEBSTER   AND   THE    WHIGS 

As  Secretary  of  State  at  this  time  there  was  no 
remarkable  diplomatic  work  for  Webster  to  do.  The 
office  involved  not  a  little  entertaining  and  the  keeping 
up  of  a  certain  style  for  which  he  was  too  poor;  and 
again  he  was  assisted  by  his  friends,  who  subscribed 
a  few  thousand  dollars  for  his  extraordinary  expenses.1 

His  son  Fletcher,  now  his  only  surviving  child,  had 
grown  to  manhood,  had  looked  after  property  and 
farms  in  the  West,  had  been  secretary  of  the  legation  to 
China  in  1843  under  Caleb  Gushing,  a  member  of  the 
Massachusetts  Legislature  in  1847,  a  sort  of  secretary 
and  assistant  to  his  father  in  the  Department  of  State, 
and  was  now  surveyor  of  the  port  of  Boston.  The 
fourth  volume  of  the  edition  of  the  father's  works, 
published  in  1851,  is  dedicated  to  Fletcher,  and  several 
of  the  diplomatic  papers  are  described  in  this  dedication 
as  "  written  wholly  or  mainly  "  by  him.  He  was  no 
doubt  a  source  of  no  little  comfort  and  satisfaction  to  his 
parent.  He  rather  inclined  to  be  a  Free  Soiler;  and 
Senator  Hoar  says  attended  the  convention  which 
founded  the  Free  Soil  party  in  Massachusetts.  Though 
without  the  genius  of  his  father,  he  might  but  for  his 
early  death  in  the  Civil  War  have  become  a  very 
prominent  man. 

Though  a  man  now  of  almost  seventy,  Webster 
is  described  in  this  spring  of  1851  as  in  the  almost 
daily  habit  of  rising  at  four  in  the  morning,  and,  accom 
panied  only  by  his  private  secretary,  going  fishing  at 
the  Little  Falls  of  the  Potomac  and  returning  before  the 
offices  of  the  State  Department  were  open,-  so  as  to 

1  Curtis,  vol.  ii,  p.  496. 

495 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

lose  no  time  at  his  duties.  He  found,  it  seems,  that 
this  method  of  fresh  air  and  exercise  invigorated  him ; 
and  we  are  reminded  of  John  Quincy  Adams's  habit  in 
his  old  age  of  bathing  in  the  Potomac  early  in  the 
morning.2 

It  was  at  this  time  that  Webster's  health  began  to 
fail.  The  long  summer  with  the  compromise  in  the 
heat  of  Washington  had  been  very  severe.  He  en 
dured  it  at  the  time  and  thought  himself  stronger;  but 
when  the  excitement  had  passed  he  began  to  break 
down.  His  annual  hay  fever  had  become  more  than 
an  inconvenience.  It  was  an  exhausting  disease  which 
prostrated  him  and  prevented  the  use  of  his  eyes.  That 
October  at  Marshfield  he  described  his  health  as  miser 
able.  He  was  "  hardly  able,"  he  said,  "  to  drive  round 
the  farm  more  than  twice."  This  was  indeed  a  changed 
Webster.  The  chronic  diarrhoea  he  had  had  for  many 
years  continued  to  trouble  him.  He  went  to  the  Elms 
Farm  in  New  Hampshire  and  was  much  improved  by 
the  mountain  air  and  his  old  pleasures  of  roaming 
through  the  hills  and  sitting  by  "  glorious  chip  fires  " 
in  the  evening.  In  the  next  summer,  1851,  dreading 
the  onset  of  the  hay  fever,  he  used  most  violent  remedies 
in  considerable  quantities,  and  much  to  his  surprise, 
the  disease  was  kept  off  during  most  of  the  season. 
But  the  remedies  were  nearly  as  bad  as  the  disease,  if 
not  worse,  and  his  Boston  doctor  finally  persuaded  him 
to  stop  them.  It  was  supposed  afterwards  that  the 
hay  fever  had  been  stopped,  not  by  the  remedies,  but 
by  the  increase  of  a  worse  malady,  cirrhosis  of  the  liver, 
of  which  he  finally  died. 

That  disease  is  often  the  result  of  overindulgence 
in  stimulants ;  but  the  physicians  say  is  also  brought 
on  by  other  conditions  and  causes.  There  was  a  great 
deal  of  discussion  in  Webster's  lifetime,  and  after  his 
death,  as  to  his  habits  in  this  respect.  Parton,  in  his 
"  Famous  Americans,"  professes  to  have  seen  him  pre- 

2Lanman,  Private  Life  of  Webster,  pp.  99,  100. 
496 


DAGUERREOTYPE     OF     WEBSTER 
In  the  possession  of  Dartmouth  College 


LAST  DAYS  OF  WEBSTER  AND  THE  WHIGS 

siding  at  a  banquet  with  two  bottles  of  Madeira  under 
his  buff  waistcoat  and  applauding  every  reference  to 
the  clergy  and  religion.  He  also  saw  him,  he  says, 
address  an  audience  "  in  a  state  not  far  removed  from 
intoxication,  and  mumble  incoherence  for  ten  minutes." 
Parker  says  "  he  became  overfond  of  animal  delights, 
of  the  joys  of  the  body's  baser  parts;  fond  of  sensual 
luxury,  the  victim  of  low  appetites.  He  loved  power, 
loved  pleasure,  loved  wine.  Let  me  turn  off  my  face 
and  say  no  more  of  this  sad  theme.  Others  were  as 
bad  as  he."  3 

Edward  Everett,  on  the  other  hand,  said  in  his 
eulogy,  in  response  to  a  supposed  question  on  these 
points,  that  no  one  but  an  angel  had  a  right  to  ask  such 
a  question  and  no  one  but  a  Pharisee  would;  and  he 
reminds  us  that  there  are  spots  on  the  sun.4  Edward 
Everett  Hale,  who  from  boyhood  was  often  at  Web 
ster's  house,  denies  the  intemperance  as  preposterous, 
and  in  his  "  Memories  of  a  Hundred  Years  "  says  that  in 
twenty-six  years'  knowledge  of  him  he  never  heard  of 
any  intemperance ;  that  he  was  greatly  astonished  when 
he  found  in  later  years  the  impression  growing  up  in 
the  country  that  Webster  "  was  often,  not  to  say  gener 
ally,  overcome  with  liquor ;  "  and  that  his  father,  who 
survived  to  1864  and  knew  Webster  intimately,  always 
denied  these  stories  with  disgust  and  indignation. 

I  have  a  letter  from  Mr.  S.  Arthur  Bent,  of  Boston, 
familiar  with  the  Webster  family  and  the  times,  who 
says  that  he  was  informed  by  an  old  resident  near 
Marshfield  that  "  never  in  the  course  of  his  long  life 
had  he  ever  heard  one  citizen  of  Marshfield  allude  to 
Mr.  Webster's  habits  as  being  what  they  were  called 
elsewhere."  The  testimony  of  Seth  Weston,  of  Marsh- 

3  Famous  Americans,  pp.  105,  106 ;  Theodore  Parker,  Dis 
course  on  Death  of  Webster,  p.  95.     See  also  several  passages 
in  Ben   Perley   Poore's  Reminiscences. 

4  Everett,  Speeches  and  Orations,  vol.  iii,  p.  408;  Webster 
Centennial  at  Dartmouth,  p.  265. 

32  497 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

field,  quoted  in  Mr.  Wilkinson's  book,  is  to  the  same 
effect.  In  the  long  years  of  his  acquaintance  he  had 
never  known  Webster  "  at  all  under  the  influence  of 
liquor,  excepting  on  one  solitary  occasion.  And  on 
that  one  occasion  he  was  far  from  being  intoxicated; 
he  seemed  to<  be  a  little  flushed  or  exhilarated — that 
was  all." 

The  testimony  of  Webster's  physician,  Dr.  Jeffries, 
should  also  be  quoted : 

"  I  admit  that  Mr.  Webster  was  in  the  occasional  u'se  of 
wine,  and  sometimes  of  other  alcoholic  drinks,  and  gave  as  a 
probable  reason  that  it  was  much  more  the  custom  in  Wash 
ington  than  in  this  city;  but  I  confidently  express  the  opinion 
that  no  man  can  be  produced  who  can  show  that  he  knows — 
although  many  may  erroneously  presume,  as  in  the  instance 
above  referred  to — that  his  great  intellect  was  ever  clouded  by 
stimulants;  or  that  he  was  unfitted  at  any  time,  even  for  the 
production  of  State  papers."  (Harvey,  Reminiscences,  p.  445.) 

Europeans  would  be  greatly  amused  at  all  this  detail 
and  pains  about  a  man's  drinking  and  whether  he  was 
flushed  or  exhilarated.  They  are  always  surprised  at 
our  winks,  innuendoes  and  suspicions  whenever  drinking 
is  mentioned.  To  be  gay,  exhilarated  and  lively  from 
wine  is  to  them  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world  and 
no  harm.  We  always  take  these  things  very  seriously, 
sometimes  fanatically,  in  America,  and  probably  it  is 
necessary  in  our  climate. 

Read'ers  of  Campbell's  lives  of  the  Chief  Justices 
and  Lord  Chancellors  of  England  will  remember  his 
descriptions  of  some  of  those  worthies  as  two-bottle  or 
three-bottle  men,  according  to  the  quantity. of  which 
they  were  capable  with  impunity  at  a  sitting;  and  this 
we  usually  regard  as  one  of  the  pleasantries  of  litera 
ture.  Lord  Stowell,  for  instance,  was  a  two-bottle  man. 
His  brother  said  of  him,  he  will  drink  any  given  quan 
tity  of  port ;  and  "  despite  his  excesses,  his  bodily  health 
remained  good  until  he  was  nearly  ninety."5  Those 

"Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  vol.  li,  p.  in. 
408 


LAST  DAYS  OF  WEBSTER  AND  THE  WHIGS 

gentlemen  of  the  old  school  had  strong  livers.  Web 
ster's  favorite  drink,  they  say,  was  brandy;  a  powerful 
drug,  fit  only,  Dr.  Johnson  said,  for  heroes.  There  was 
also  a  famous  American  Chief  Justice  of  good  deci 
sions.,  unclouded  brain,  and  genial  humor  who  lived  to 
be  eighty-five  and  seldom  took  less  than  a  quart  of 
whiskey  a  day;  and  President  Lincoln,  as  we  all  know, 
wanted  to  send  to  every  general  in  the  army  a  barrel 
of  the  kind  said  to  be  used  by  one  of  them. 

But  the  point  with  Webster  is  that,  among  us 
Americans  who  cannot  be  kept  within  bounds  on  this 
subject,  he  is  charged  both  in  print  and  in  tradition  with 
being  a  perfect  sot,  drunk  on  important  occasions, 
drunk  most  of  the  time,  making  some  of  his  most 
famous  speeches  when  drunk,  and  incapable  of  making 
a  good  speech  unless  he  was  drunk.  In  fact,  as  Edward 
Everett  Hale  puts  it,  "a  third  part  of  the  anecdotes  of 
him  which  you  find  afloat  have  reference  to  occasions 
when  it  was  supposed  that,  under  the  influence  of 
whiskey,  he  did  not  know  what  he  was  doing."  After 
telling  a  Webster  story,  the  raconteur  is  apt  to  add, 
"  He  was  drunk,  of  course."  He  feels  that  unless  he 
says  that  it  will  be  supposed  that  he  does  not  understand 
these  things. 

There  was  also  another  habit  into  which  people 
seem  to  have  drifted.  His  speeches  had  immense  in 
fluence;  political  speeches  had  more  influence  in  that  day 
than  in  ours ;  and  it  was  discovered  that  a  good  way 
to  offset  Webster's  was  to  say,  "  Oh,  he  was  drunk ; " 
or  better  still,  "  A  fine  speech,  a  fine  speech ;  but  he  was 
drunk."  There  is  the  story  of  the  political  opponent 
who  was  seen  coming  away  early  from  one  of  his 
speeches. 

"  Why  are  you  coming  away  so  soon  ?  " 
"  Oh,  I  am  disgusted.     Webster  is  drunk." 
He  was  no  doubt  disgusted,  but  it  was  at  something 
that  annoyed  him  more  than  drink. 

Mr.  Wilkinson  shows  that  in  those  instances  where 
499 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

a  responsible  or  important  person  was  reported  to  have 
said  that  he  had  seen  Webster  drunk  in  public  or  making 
a  "  fine  speech  "  when  drunk,  the  said  important  person 
when  interviewed  denied  it  and  said  that  it  had 
been  reported  to  him  that  So-and-so  had  seen 
the  sad  occurrence.  So  of  the  story  that  Webster 
in  speaking  at  a  public  banquet  had  fallen  drunk  into 
the  arms  of  the  Mayor  of  Rochester,  the  Mayor, 
when  asked  about  it,  said  that  there  was  no  truth  in  it; 
that  Mr.  Webster  in  offering  a  toast  to  the  city  had 
merely  laid  both  his  hands  on  the  Mayor's  shoulders. 

Alexander  H.  Stephens,  afterwards  Vice-President 
of  the  Southern  Confederacy,  lived  next  door  to  Web 
ster  in  Washington,  knew  him  intimately  for  six  years, 
and  declared  that  "  the  impression  in  the  country  that  he 
was  a  great  drunkard  "  was  "  an  outrageous  slander.'' 
He  had  never  seen  him  "  in  the  least  inebriated."  But 
then  he  adds,  as  so  many  of  them  were  apt  to  do, 
that  he  had  heard  of  his  being  intoxicated  twice,  "  and 
on  one  of  those  occasions — a  dinner — he  made  a  speech 
that  was  grandly  eloquent." 

There  it  is  again.  Somebody  else,  not  the  witness 
himself,  sees  it ;  and  when  thus  drunk  he  always  makes 
a  wonderful  speech.  But  we  cannot  go  on  with  these 
instances  which  are  given  in  full  detail  by  Mr.  Wilkin 
son.  Those  who  believe  that  drunken  men  can  make 
highly  intellectual  speeches  must  be  left  to  the  pleasures 
of  their  own  credulity.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  the  news 
paper  tale,  repeated  by  Poore  in  his  Reminiscences,  that 
Webster,  in  dying,  called  for  drink  with  his  last  breath, 
is  nonsense,  unsupported  by  any  evidence  and  positively 
denied  by  Mr.  Curtis,  who  was  present  at  his  death. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  Webster  was  fond  of  drink 
ing,  drank  with  the  Senators  at  Washington,  and  with 
his  friends,  drank  brandy  with  sugar  under  the  advice 
of  the  physicians  of  that  time  for  an  annoying  intestinal 
tendency,  drank  at  banquets  and  public  dinners  liber 
ally,  was  fond  of  his  two  glasses  of  Madeira  at  dinner  at 
home,  and  no  doubt  in  these  ways  seriously  injured  his 

500 


LAST  DAYS  OF  WEBSTER  AND  THE  WHIGS 

health  and  iron  constitution,  as  is  easily  done  in  our 
climate.  But  he  was  no  more  an  intemperate  man  than 
hundreds  of  others  of  his  time  against  whom  no  such 
charge  has  ever  been  made;  there  is  not  the  slightest 
evidence  that  his  wonderfully  poised  intellectual  power 
was  impaired  at  all  up  to  the  time  of  his  death  when  past 
seventy.  Six  months  before  his  death  he  tried  and  won 
the  Goodyear  Rubber  suit,  a  difficult  case  of  many  days' 
trial,  the  most  prominent  litigation  of  its  time;  and  that 
he  was  a  common  drunkard  or  frequently  or  often  drunk 
or  that  he  made  speeches  when  drunk  is  not  supported 
by  any  respectable  evidence. 

During  the  summers  of  1851  and   1852  he  sought 
strength  in  the  only  two  places  he  had  ever  been  able 
to  find  it,  Marshfield  and  The  Elms.     The  change  to 
the   mountain   region  of  The   Elms   was,   he  thought, 
at  times  decidedly  beneficial.     It  was  sad  to  see  him 
struggling  to  regain  his  old  pleasures  and  life  in  these, 
to  him,  earthly  paradises.     Besides  disease,  he  had  to 
fight  away  the  guests,  conservative  Whigs  and  compro 
mise  Democrats  in  swarms,  that  came  to  see  and  con 
gratulate  him  on  the  success  of  the  great  measure  of 
1850.     The  Elms  was  the  worst  place  for  them  because 
there  was  a  railroad  station  close  to  the  house.     To 
avoid  them  he  would  take  his  horse  and  wagon,  start 
early,  and  drive  far  into  the  foothills,  or  put  his  farmer, 
John   Taylor,  on   guard   to  keep  them  off.     He   even 
tried  living  a  little  distance  from  The  Elms.     Distinc 
tion  was  torturing  him.     But  still  there  were  some  of 
the  old  delights.     "  The  foliage  indescribably  beautiful," 
he  writes  from  The  Elms,  October  2ist,   1850,  "John 
Taylor,  straight  up.     Henry  and  I  his  only  guests,  and 
three    glorious    chip-fires    already   burning.     Can   you 
resist  that  ?  "  6 

Apparently,  the  failure  of  his  health  had  begun  sooner 
than  necessary.  He  was  barely  seventy,  and  had 
seemed  made  to  last  a  hundred.  With  such  unusual 

8  Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xvi,  p.  572. 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

vigor  as  he  had  shown  in  the  rest  of  his  life,  he  should 
have  been  free  from  serious  decay  until  seventy-five,  and 
was  entitled  to  five  years  more  of  comparatively  com 
fortable  old  age.  But  the  too  liberal  habits  of  the 
Senate  and  Washington  were  cutting  him  down  before 
his  time. 

As  Secretary  of  State  he  had  at  this  time  no  momen 
tous  questions  to  settle  like  the  Ashburton  Treaty,  which 
had  added  so  largely  to  his  own  fame  and  to  the  ad 
vancement  of  international  peace  when  he  had  been 
head  of  the  State  Department  under  President  Tyler 
in  1842.  A  settlement  with  England  in  regard  to  her 
protectorate  in  Central  America,  where  a  ship  canal 
between  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  was  proposed,  a  nego 
tiation  with  Mexico  about  a  railroad  across  the  Isthmus 
of  Tehuantepec,  the  rebellion  in  Cuba,  and  the  libera 
tion  of  the  Hungarian  patriot  Kossuth  from  imprison 
ment  in  Turkey,  constituted  the  more  serious  employ 
ment  of  the  new  secretary  in  his  short  term  of  office. 
They  were  important  questions  in  their  day,  but  are 
now  forgotten. 

There  was  one  question,  however,  which  has  not 
been  entirely  forgotten,  and  that  was  the  Hiilsemann 
Letter  in  which  Webster  saw  one  of  his  opportunities. 
Our  government  had  had  an  agent  in  Europe  to  report 
the  progress  of  the  revolution  in  Hungary,  so  that  we 
could  recognize  any  new  government  that  established 
itself.  The  revolution  was  put  down;  and  the  Cheva 
lier  Hiilsemann,  the  Austrian  charge  at  Washington, 
complained  of  the  investigation  of  this  agent  as  spying 
and  an  inclination  to  sympathize  with  the  revolutionists. 
Webster  determined  to  say  in  his  reply  that  by  the  law 
of  nations  we  were  entitled  to  make  such  an  investi 
gation  for  our  own  information  and  guidance,  that  we 
did,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  sympathize  with  the  struggle 
for  Hungarian  independence  because  it  was  so  like  our 
own,  that  we  would  have  been  quite  willing  to  recognize 
an  independent  Hungarian  government,  that  we  had  no 
sympathy  whatever  with  the  Holy  Alliance  of  which 

502 


LAST  DAYS  OF  WEBSTER  AND  THE  WHIGS 

Austria  was  a  member  because  its  principles  were  a 
denial  of  the  rightfulness  of  our  own  origin,  that  we 
had  become  a  powerful  republic  of  twenty-five  millions 
of  people,  and  that  if  the  Austrian  government  had 
attempted  to  treat  our  authorized  .agent  as  a  spy  we 
would  have  been  entirely  competent  to  resent  it  and 
would  have  resented  it  by  the  whole  power  of  the  re 
public,  military  and  naval. 

It  cost  him  no  little  labor  to  say  all  this  with  historical 
proof  and  in  the  most  finished  language  of  refined  diplo 
macy.  Draft  after  draft  of  the  long  letter  was  pre 
pared  with  the  help  of  a  subordinate  in  the  State  De 
partment,  Mr.  Hunter,  and  of  Webster's  life-long  friend 
Mr.  Everett,  both  of  whom  he  called  to  his  assistance, 
as  he  was  far  from  well  that  autumn  of  1850.  Under 
his  directions  they  made  the  first  rough  drafts  from 
which  he  worked ;  and  in  the  finished  document  there 
remained  some  sentences  which  are  supposed  to  be  not 
thoroughly  Websterian.  But  it  was  a  most  impressive 
paper  which  delighted  the  whole  country  by  its  Ameri 
canism,  inspired  respect  in  Europe,  and  has  become  a 
landmark  in  the  history  of  diplomacy.  It  was  a  letter 
in  which  the  substance  was  old-fashioned  spread-eagle 
ism  expressed  in  classic  urbanity,  and  no  one  but  Web 
ster  could  have  done  it.  Except  that  it  is  not  so  blunt 
it  reminds  us  in  some  respects  of  a  letter  addressed  to 
the  British  government  by  President  Grover  Cleveland 
on  the  Monroe  Doctrine.  It  was  Webster's  last  service 
to  the  cause  of  his  life, — American  nationality. 

"  If  you  say  that  my  Hiilsemann  letter  is  boastful  and 
rough,  I  shall  own  the  soft  impeachment.  My  excuse  is  two 
fold:  i.  I  thought  it  well  enough  to  speak  out,  and  tell  the 
people  of  Europe  who  and  what  we  are,  and  awaken  them  to 
a  just  sense  of  the  unparalleled  growth  of  this  country.  2. 
I  wished  to  write  a  paper  which  should  touch  the  national  pride, 
and  make  a  man  feel  sheepish  and  look  silly  who  should  speak 
of  disunion."  (Curtis,  vol.  ii,  p.  537.) 

As  the  time  for  the  Presidential  nominations  that 
were  to  be  made  in  June,  1852,  drew  near,  the  great 

503 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

political  question  obviously  before  the  country  was 
the  position  the  Whig  party  should  take  on  the  Clay 
compromise.  It  was  regarded  by  its  advocates  as  suc 
cessful,  as  having  accomplished  its  object  for  over  a  year, 
and  as  likely  to  continue  in  this  beneficent  course  if  left 
undisturbed.  The  Democrats  both  North  and  South,  to 
gether  with  the  southern  Whigs  and  the  northern  con 
servative  Whigs,  were  favorable  to  it  and  wished  to 
see  a  President  elected  who  would  assist  in  making 
it  final  and  permanent.  Against  this  desire  for  finality 
were  arrayed  the  radical  Whigs,  the  Abolitionists  and 
the  Free  Soilers,  who  denounced  finality  as  a  base  league 
with  cruelty,  tyranny  and  crime,  and  whose  utmost 
efforts  were  directed  towards  bringing  the  whole  ques 
tion  again  into  a  state  of  solution  from  which  some 
other  policy  could  be  shaped. 

In  the  Whig  party  Webster,  Fillmore  and  General 
Scott  were  the  possible  candidates.  A  strong  conser 
vative  interest  favored  Webster.  A  gathering  of  Whig 
delegates  in  Massachusetts  adopted  an  address,  drawn 
by  Edward  Everett,  declaring  that  all  other  influences 
would  have  been  unavailing  to  pass  the  compromise 
without  Webster's  7th  of  March  speech,  and  that  his 
subsequent  efforts  to  suppress  the  agitation  against 
compromise  had  largely  contributed  to  save  the  Union. 
Such  praise,  such  very  liberal  praise,  of  the  7th  of 
March  speech  would  be  difficult  to  find  anywhere  else  in 
Massachusetts  literature.  Similar  demonstrations  in 
his  favor  were  made  in  other  States ;  and  in  New  York 
a  meeting  of  Whigs  adopted  a  strong  appeal  to  the  coun 
try  prepared  by  Mr.  William  M.  Evarts,  one  of  the 
young  men  to  become  prominent  in  the  new  period  on 
which  the  country  was  entering. 

"This  eminent  citizen,  instructed  in  every  art,  trained  in 
every  discipline,  informed  by  every  experience  of  public  life, 
endowed  with  every  power,  and  furnished  with  every  acquire 
ment  fit  for  the  service  of  the  State— his  public  virtue,  and 
patriotism,  tried  by  every  personal,  partisan  and  sectional 
influence  within  the  whole  sphere  of  our  politics,  and  ever 
found  true  to  the  whole  country,  and  its  permanent  welfare— 

504 


LAST  DAYS  OF  WEBSTER  AND  THE  WHIGS 

this  eminent  citizen,  now  in  full  maturity  of  years  and  wisdom, 
yet  his  eye  not  dimmed,  nor  his  natural  force  abated,  we  believe 
most  worthy  to  receive  the  honors,  most  able  to  perform  the 
duties  of  President  of  the  United  States." 

There  was  more,  constituting  altogether  the  most 
complete  and  best  description  of  Webster's  political 
character  and  career  that  has  ever  been  briefly  stated. 
It  was  all  true  enough  except,  unfortunately,  the  five 
or  six  words  which  said  that  his  natural  force  was 
not  abated.  So  far  as  ability  and  experience  were  con 
cerned,  no  man  was  better  fitted  to*  fill  the  office  of 
President.  No  man  by  long  patriotic  and  devoted  pub 
lic  service  more  richly  deserved  it.  Whether,  if  nom 
inated,  he  could  be  elected  with  the  radical  Whig  and 
Free  Soil  press  ridiculing  as  womanish  his  and  Clay's 
fears  for  the  safety  of  the  Union,  and  denouncing  com 
promise  as  an  imbecility,  was  quite  another  question. 
Many  of  the  radical  Whigs  were  now  saying  that  the 
fear  that  the  Union  once  broken  could  never  be  re 
stored  was  a  mere  humbug  and  bugaboo.  If  broken 
into  two  or  three  sections  by  slavery,  they  would  soon 
reunite  and  be  stronger  than  ever.  But  even  if  nomi 
nated  Webster  could  not  have  been  elected,  not  merely 
from  want  of  votes,  but  because  his  death  occurred 
before  election  day. 

Among  the  other  possible  candidates,  Mr.  Fillmore 
was  of  the  same  views  on  compromise  as  Webster,  and 
though  a  rather  colorless  man,  he  had  given  the  country 
a  good  administration  and  had  a  strong  following. 
General  Scott,  "  old  fuss  and  feathers,"  as  he  was  famil 
iarly  called,  had  an  equally  strong  following,  and  on 
certain  grounds  seemed  available.  He  was  a  military 
hero*,  the  sort  of  candidate  with  which  the  Whigs  had 
already  twice  won  the  Presidency;  and  his  opinions 
on  compromise  and  other  political  questions  were  almost 
unknown  and  could  presumably  be  made  to  take  various 
shapes.  So  far  as  his  opinions  were  known,  they  were 
against  the  compromise,  and  his  friends  and  active  sup 
porters  were  of  that  stripe. 

505 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

Forty  ballots  were  taken  in  the  convention  with  him 
and  Fillmore  running  almost  even,  and  he  was  finally 
nominated  on  the  fifty-third  ballot  by  a  "  deal  "  and  on 
a  platform  which  supported  the  compromise  and  the 
new  fugitive  slave  law.  The  southern  Whigs  in  the 
convention  had  wanted  this  sort  of  platform,  but  many 
northern  Whigs  had  opposed  it.  An  agreement  was 
reached  by  which  the  southern  Whigs  gave  votes 
enough  to  nominate  Scott,  in  exchange  for  which  the 
northern  Whigs  withdrew  their  opposition  to  a  plat 
form  favoring  the  compromise.  This  double  deal  of  a 
candidate  with  opinions  the  opposite  of  those  of  the 
platform,  while  on  its  face  an  apparent  shrewdness  to 
some  minds,  was  in  its  results  a  most  lamentable  failure.7 

Not  a  southern  vote  was  cast  for  Webster,  so  that 
if  it  be  true,  as  alleged  by  the  Abolitionists,  that  he  had 
made  the  7th  of  March  speech  and  supported  compro 
mise  merely  to  secure  southern  support  for  himself,  he 
made  as  great  a  blunder  and  miscalculation  as  was  ever 
tmade  by  him  or  by  any  other  statesman. 

The  Democratic  candidate,  Franklin  Pierce,  was 
elected  by  an  overwhelming  vote ;  and  the  Whig  party, 
of  such  noble  memory  and  usefulness,  was  never  heard 
of  again  in  active  politics. 

The  spring  and  summer  of  1852,  which  were  all 
that  was  left  of  life  for  Webster,  were  crowded  with 
duties  which  would  not  have  been  light  tasks  for  a 
young  man  in  perfect  health.  Besides  his  official  work 
as  Secretary  of  State,  he  delivered  a  long  and  carefully 
prepared  discourse  before  the  New  York  Historical 
Society  on  "  The  Dignity  of  Historical  Compositions," 
which  was  a  review  and  criticism  of  all  the  great  his 
torians  of  the  past. 

This   was  another  of  the  occasions  when  he  was 

7  Curtis,  vol.  ii,  p.  623.  Whatever  may  have  been  Webster's 
disappointment  as  to  former  nominations,  he  manifested,  his 
private  secretary  says,  no  regret  at  the  loss  of  this  one  in 
1852.  (Lanman,  Private  Life  of  Webster,  p.  63.) 

506 


LAST  DAYS  OF  WEBSTER  AND  THE  WHIGS 

reported  to  have  been  drunk  in  the  delivery  of  a  speech, 
a  charge  which  Mr.  Stetson,  who  was  with  him,  cir 
cumstantially  refutes.8  There  was  no  foundation  for 
the  story  that  Mr.  Stetson  saw  or  could  remember, 
except  that,  being  tired,  he  had  before  the  delivery  of 
the  speech  laid  his  head  upon  his  hand.  But  with  the 
zealous  work  of  the  Abolitionists  to  "  kill  him,"  as  they 
called  it,  the  slightest  circumstance  was  now  enough. 
If  he  rose  from  a  chair  stiffly,  as  men  after  sixty  are 
apt  to  do;  if  in  an  after-dinner  speech  he  rested  his 
hands  on  the  table,  if  he  laid  his  hands  on  a  politician's 
shoulders,  immediately  it  was  "  Oh,  he  was  drunk;  fine 
speech,  fine  speech,  but  he  was  drunk." 

Immediately  after  his  historical  society  address  he 
spent  some  weeks  in  Trenton  trying  the  famous  case 
which  involved  the  invention  of  vulcanized  india-rubber 
by  Mr.  Goodyear.  It  was  unusual  for  a  Secretary  of 
State  to  try  cases  in  court ;  but  the  fee  in  this  case, 
$10,000,  was  so  large  that  Webster  eagerly  seized  upon 
the  opportunity  to  relieve  himself  of  some  of  the  heavy 
burden  of  his  debts.  One  or  two  more  fees  like  that 
would,  he  said,  pay  off  everything. 

He  was  driven  ever)''  morning  from  the  hotel  to  the 
court  house  by  Mr.  Goodyear's  coachman,  with  a  very 
fine  blooded  horse.  Webster  admired  the  animal  so 
much  that  Mr.  Goodyear,  delighted  with  the  result  of 
the  case,  sent  the  horse  to  Marshfield  as  a  present. 

Physically  Webster  was  no  longer  the  same  man, 
but  by  the  testimony  of  one  who  saw  him  conduct  this 
difficult  and  important  trial  his  mental  abilities  were  as 
strong  as  ever.  His  opponent,  Rufus  Choate,  has  left 
us  a  beautiful  description  of  him. 

"  The  raven  hair,  the  vigorous  full  frame  and  firm  tread, 
the  eminent  but  severe  beauty  of  the  countenance,  not  yet 
sealed  with  the  middle  age  of  man ;  the  exuberant  demonstra 
tion  of  all  sorts  of  power,  which  so  marked  him  at  first — for 
these  as  once  they  were  I  explored  in  vain.  Yet  how  far 

'Wilkinson's   Daniel   Webster,   p,    120. 
507 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

higher  was  the  interest  that  attended  him  now:  his  sixty-nine 
years  robed,  as  it  were,  with  honor  and  with  love,  with  asso 
ciations  of  great  service  done  to  the  State,  and  of  great  fame 
gathered  and  safe;  and  then  the  perfect  mastery  in  its  legal 
and  scientific  principles,  and  in  all  its  facts;  the  admirable 
clearness  and  order  in  which  his  propositions  were  advanced 
successively;  the  power,  the  occasional  high  ethical  tone,  the 
appropriate  eloquence,  by  which  they  were  made  probable  and 
persuasive  to  the  judicial  reason,  these  announced  the  leader 
of  the  American  Bar,  with  every  faculty  and  every  accomplish 
ment  by  which  he  had  won  that  proud  title,  wholly  unim 
paired." 

Such  was  the  man  in  his  seventy-first  year  whom 
the  Abolitionists  said  was  a  common  drunkard.  He 
afterwards  made  speeches  at  Harrisburg  and  at  Annap 
olis  to  encourage  support  of  the  compromise.  That 
in  itself  of  course  was  proof  of  drunkenness.  He  was 
thrown  from,  his  carriage  while  driving  near  Marshfield 
on  the  6th  of  May.  The  bolt  holding  the  front  wheels 
to  the  body  broke,  the  body  dropped  down,  and  he  was 
shot  forward,  striking  on  his  wrists  and  head.  He 
was  carried  to  a  house,  where  he  lay  insensible  for  some 
time;  and  this  injury  may  possibly  have  hastened  his 
final  illness.  Before  he  had  recovered  from  this  acci 
dent  he  made  a  long  speech  in  Faneuil  Hall.  He  made 
another  speech  in  Boston  in  July  at  a  great  reception 
given  to  him  by  all  classes  of  people  and  intended  to 
express  regret  that  he  had  not  been  nominated  by  the 
Whig  convention.  These  speeches  were  both  in  his 
usual  able  manner,  although  he  was  still  suffering  from 
the  effects  of  the  accident.  His  arm  was  inflamed  and 
in  a  sling,  and  he  required  the  constant  assistance  of 
an  attendant  about  his  person.  But  when  he  went  into 
the  hall  to  speak  he  dispensed  by  a  great  effort,  his 
physician  tells  us,  with  both  the  attendant  and  the 
sling. 

That  summer  of  1852  he  tried  to  spend  principally 
at  Marshfield,  and  attend  there  to  his  duties  as  Secre 
tary  of  State;  for  the  hot  weather  in  Washington  he 
felt  would  kill  him.  Serious  business  arose  with  Eng 
land  over  our  rights  of  fishing  in  the  waters  of  New 

508 


Courtesy  of  the  S.  S.  McClure  C 


WEBSTER    SHORTLY    BEFORE    HIS    DEATH 
(From  a  Daguerreotype) 


LAST  DAYS  OF  WEBSTER  AND  THE  WHIGS 

Foundland  and  the  Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence.  Webster 
was  returning  from  The  Elms  in  New  Hampshire  to 
meet  the  British  Minister  at  Marshfield  and  had  arrived 
at  Kingston,  nine  miles  from  his  place,  where,  much  to 
his  surprise,  he  was  met  by  a  vast  concourse  of  his 
neighbors  and  friends  without  regard  to  party  lines, 
some  in  carriages,  some  on  horseback,  and  with  great 
ceremony  they  conducted  him  home,  the  roads  being 
lined  for  miles  with  women  and  children.  An  address 
was  made,  to  which  he  replied  in  the  last  speech  he 
ever  made  to  a  public  assembly. 

"  I  remember,"  writes  his  secretary,  "  how,  after  the 
crowd  had  disappeared,  he  entered  his  house  fatigued  beyond 
measure,  and  covered  with  dust,  and  threw  himself  into  a  chair, 
and  he  then  looked  up,  like  one  seeking  something  he  could 
not  find.  It  was  the  portrait  of  his  darling  but  departed 
daughter  Julia,  and  it  happened  to  be  in  full  view.  He  gazed 
upon  it  for  some  time  in  a  kind  of  trance,  and  then  wept 
like  one  whose  heart  was  broken,  and  these  words  escaped 
his  lips:  'Oh,  I  am  so  thankful  to  be  here!  If  I  could  only 
have  my  will,  never,  never,  would  I  again  leave  this  home.' 
And  then  he  sought  and  obtained  a  night  of  repose."  (Lan- 
man,  Private  Life,  p.  177.) 

President  Fillmore  wanted  him.  to  go  as  Minister 
to  England,  and  he  had  to  go  to  Washington  for  a  few 
weeks  in  August.  There  was  plenty  of  work  cut  put 
for  him ;  but  he  was  utterly  weary  and  trying  to  resign 
from  the  secretaryship  and  all  his  duties.  While  in 
Washington  he  prepared  a  long  statement  on  the  right 
of  our  people  to  take  guano  from  the  Lobos  Islands. 
Contrary  to  what  might  be  expected,  it  is  in  his  accus 
tomed  powerful  manner,  and  shows  no  signs  of  intellec 
tual  failing;  but  it  was  the  last  diplomatic  paper  he 
ever  drew.  Attempts  were  being  made  in  Massachu 
setts  and  various  parts  of  the  country  to  have  him'  run 
as  an  independent  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  and 
urgent  letters  were  coming  to  him  on  this  subject. 
Equally  urgent  letters  were  pouring  in  upon  him;  to 
support  the  regular  Whig  nomination  of  General  Scott. 

He  would  take  no  part  in  the  independent  movement ; 
509 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

and  as  for  his  supporting  General  Scott,  well  known  to 
be  the  enemy  of  the  compromise  for  which  Webster 
had  labored,  sacrificed  and  risked  himself  for  the  last 
two  years  and  which  he  believed  essential  to  the  safety 
of  the  Union,  that  was  out  of  the  question.  The  truth 
was  that  both  Webster  and  the  Whig  party  were  dying. 
While  not,  perhaps,  willing  to  foresee  his  own  end  so 
near,  he  foresaw  clearly  enough  the  end  of  his  old 
political  party  which  had  so  stultified  itself  and  divided 
itself  beyond  hope  with  a  soldier  candidate  opposing 
compromise  on  a  platform  that  favored  compromise. 

The  result  of  the  election,  Webster  said,  would  be 
that  the  Whig  party  would  be  withdrawn  into  the 
North;  no  party  not  extending  throughout  the  Union 
could  safely  administer  the  government;  there  would 
soon  be  no  political  party  of  any  importance  in  the 
South  except  the  Democrats. 

Early  in  September  he  was  back  again  at  Marshfield, 
never  to  leave  it  except  for  a  short  visit  to  Boston.  It 
was  in  this  month  that  he  first  complained  to  his  physi 
cians  of  the  symptoms  of  his  final  illness,  cirrhosis  of 
the  liver.9  He  spent  the  month  fighting  the  hay  fever 
and  living  on  milk,  lime  water  and  gruel,  a  strange  diet 
for  him.  The  glare  of  the  sun  hurt  his  eyes ;  but  when 
ever  he  could  he  was  out  in  his  boat  on  the  ocean  with 


"The  result  of  the  post-mortem  examination  was  reported 
by  his  physicians  in  the  American  Journal  of  Medical  Sciences 
for  January,  1853.  They  appear  to  have  concluded  that  the 
immediate  cause  of  his  death  was  hemorrhage  of  the  stomach 
and  intestines,  brought  on  by  cirrhosis  of  the  liver.  They 
weighed  his  brain  and  found  it  next  below  that  of  Cuvier, 
the  French  biologist,  which  was  the  largest  reported  up  to  that 
time.  Cuvier's  brain  weighed  64^  ounces  and  Webster's  63^4 
ounces.  But  size  in  a  few  individual  cases-  means  nothing; 
for  Lord  Byron,  one  of  the  high  intellects  of  that  period,  had  a 
brain  and  head  rather  smaller  than  the  average;  and  one  of  the 
largest  brains  that  has  ever  been  weighed  is  said  to  have 
belonged  to  a  bricklayer.  It  is  only  in  comparing  thousands 
of  instances  that  any  conclusion  as  to  a  more  intelligent  race 
having  a  larger  average  brain  can  be  drawn. 


LAST  DAYS  OF  WEBSTER  AND  THE  WHIGS 

an  awning  for  protection.  As  October  came  he  grew 
weaker.  But  he  kept  the  house  well  filled  with  his 
relatives  and  close  friends,  giving  minute  directions  for 
their  entertainment  and  planning  for  them  excursions  in 
which  he  sometimes  tried  to  take  a  part.  Before  the 
middle  of  the  month  it  was  evident  to  his  physicians 
and  friends  that  he  could  not  last  long,  yet  when  unable 
to  move  without  assistance  he  clung  to  every  detail  of 
his  old  life  out  of  doors.  His  oxen  were  driven  round 
for  him  to  see  from  the  window ;  and  he  directed  every 
day  the  work  of  the  farm. 

"He  forgets  not  to  send  to  a  friend  in  Boston  a  fresh 
caught  fish,  to  another  a  teal  shot  in  the  little  lake  near  his 
house,  or  a  pair  of  ducks  brought  down  by  the  unerring  aim 
of  his  faithful  boat-keeper;  to  a  lady  friend  in  Washington 
he  sends  some  magnificent  fruit  with  which  his  trees  are  loaded, 
and  to  another  in  Boston  a  noble  saddle  of  mutton  from  his  own 
flock."  (Curtis,  vol.  ii,  p.  683.) 

The  insatiable  desire  to  buy  land  was  still  with  him, 
and  on  the  2Qth  of  September,  within  a  month  of  his 
death,  we  find  him  concluding  a  bargain  for  fifty  more 
acres.  A  couple  of  days  afterwards  he  directs  his  man 
Hatch  to  keep  a  light  all  night  on  the  mast  of  his  sail 
boat  on  the  pond  behind  the  house,  so  that  during  his 
sleepless  nights  he  could  see  from,  his  bed  the  small 
United  States  flag  that  was  nailed  to  the  mast;  the 
light  was  to  be  kept  there  every  night  as  long  as  he 
lived.  "  My  light  shall  burn,"  he  said  to  Hatch,  "  and 
my  flag  shall  fly  as  long  as  my  life  lasts."  10 

His  physicians  were  surprised  at  his  resistance  to  the 
disease.  He  was  anxious  to  be  conscious  of  the  act  of 
dying;  he  had  a  curiosity  to  study  that  last  act  as  he 
had  studied  so  many  things ;  and  they  helped  him  with 
stimulants  and  stopped  his  pain  with  opiates.  But  in 
the  end,  like  most  people,  he  sank  into>  an  unconscious 
state  in  which  he  breathed  for  a  few  hours  and  died 
early  in  the  morning  of  October  24,  1852. 

10  Works,  National  Edition,  vol.  xvi,  pp.  665,  668. 


THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

The  streets  of  Boston  were  hung  with  black  and  a 
great  funeral  march  of  all  classes  and  conditions  kept 
passing  for  hours  through  the  town.  The  Mayor  and 
Alderman  wore  crape.  Many  of  the  courts  of  New 
England,  and  as  far  south  as  Baltimore  and  Washington, 
adjourned;  flags  were  half-masted;  public  business 
stopped.  Only  one  court,  says  Theodore  Parker,  did 
not  adjourn,  the  United  States  Court  at  Boston  that 
was  trying  an  Abolitionist  for  rescuing  a  fugitive  slave 
from  the  hunters. 

Immense  crowds  came  to  the  funeral  at  Marshfield 
from  Massachusetts  and  all  over  New  England  by  special 
steamboats  and  train  after  train  to  the  nearest  station ; 
and  there  were  great  numbers  of  farmers  among  them. 
His  body,  dressed  in  his  usual  clothes  and  in  an  open 
coffin,  was  laid  out  under  the  spreading  branches  of  a 
tree  in  front  of  the  house,  where  the  crowds  passed 
round  to  view  it.11 

They  buried  him  in  the  old  colonial  graveyard  of  the 
Pilgrims  that  was  in  the  midst  of  his  own  land,  within 
sound  of  the  breakers  of  the  sea,  among  the  old  cap 
tains,  fishermen,  farmers  and  godly  ministers  of  that 
ancient  race  whose  descendants  he  had  loved  so  well. 
It  was  his  own  arrangement  and  request;  and  nothing 
could  have  been  more  appropriate.  They  took  him  to 
the  grave,  George  Hillard  says  in  his  eulogy,  not 
enclosed  in  a  coffin,  like  the  lover  of  earth  and  nature 
that  he  was,  clad  as  when  alive,  with  the  sunshine  he 
loved  falling  on  his  face  and  the  breeze  blowing  over  it. 
Out  of  the  crowd  of  distinguished  men  stepped  six 
plain  Marshfield  farmers  who  carried  him  to  his  last 
rest;  and  on  his  tomb  they  placed  only  two  words, 
which  were  enough,  Daniel  Webster. 

"Webster  Centennial  at  Dartmouth,  pp.  1-3,  208,  275. 
Ben  Perley  Poore,  in  his  Reminiscences,  says  the  body  was  in  an 
iron  coffin  with  the  top  off.  Mr.  Runnel!,  in  Webster  Cen 
tennial  at  Dartmouth,  p.  208,  says  it  was  "  laid  upon  a  raised 
open  casket."  Poore  says  the  farmers  did  not  carry  him  to  the 
grave,  but  walked  beside  a  sort  of  car  that  bore  the  iron  coffin. 

512 


Index 


ABOLITIONISTS,  seek  to  dissolve 

the  union,  464. 
ADAMS  and  JEFFERSON,  eulogy 

on,  215-217. 
ADAMS,    J.    Q.,    IQ9,    201-203, 

217,  218,  237. 
AGRICULTURE,     English,     379- 

381. 

AMERICAN  system,  the,  226. 
ANTIMASONS,  284-286,  356,  357. 
ASHBURTON  Treaty,  393-410. 

BANK  OF  UNITED  STATES,  288- 

292,   341-343. 
BATCHELLOR,  A.   S.,  86. 
BENTON,  Senator,  237-241,  251, 

277-279,  309. 
BERLIN  Decree,   105. 
BLAKE,  George,   187,  490. 
BOSCAWEN,  82. 
BOSTON     in     Webster's     time, 

144,   145- 

BUCHANAN,  James,  199,  202. 
BUNKER    Hill    addresses,    209, 

210,  420. 
BURKE,  Edmund,  60-63. 

CALHOUN,  J.  C,  198,  309,  313, 

314,  317-339,  371-374,  471- 

CALIFORNIA,  451. 

CARLYLE,  300,   378. 

CHATHAM,  Lord,  60,  64-68. 

CHESAPEAKE,  frigate,  the,   107. 

CHEVY  Chase,  44. 

CLAY,  Henry,  17,  35,  38,  172- 
174,  1 80,  181,  198-202,  204, 
205,  283,  286,  295,  336-339, 
350,  411,  412,  425,  453,  46o- 
463- 

COM MERGE,  American,  103,  109, 
128. 

COMPROMISE  of  1833,  336~339- 
of  1850,  460,  480-483,  491. 


CORCORAN,  W.  W.,  483. 
CREOLE,    brig,    the,    394,    408. 
CRIMES   Act,  the,  203,   204. 

DANE,  Nathan,  250. 

DARTMOUTH  College,  Webster 
enters,  48,  49. 

DARTMOUTH  College  Case,  146, 
157- 

DEBTS,  414,  428-435,  483,  484- 

DEMOSTHENES,  Webster  com 
pared  with,  60. 

DENISON,  J.  E.,  207,  208. 

DICKENS,   Charles,   376. 

DISUNION  theories,  123-127, 
330,  333- 

DRUNKENNESS,  charges  of, 
497-500. 

DUELS,  139,  140. 

ELIOT,   Samuel,  478,  479. 
ELMS    Farm,   the,   28,   300. 
ELOQUENCE,     Webster's     meth 
ods  of,  52-60. 

EMBARGO,  the,   107,   108,   no. 
EMERSON,    R.    W.,    420,     421, 

485. 
ENGLAND,    Webster's    visit    to, 

375-38i. 

ERSKINE,  60,  64. 
EVERETT,    Edward,    80,    497. 
EXPURGING      Resolution,     36*0, 

361- 

FIELD    sports,    187-190. 
FILLMORE,   President,   478,  492, 

504-506,    509. 
FLETCHER,      Grace,      Webster's 

first  wife,  85,   194. 
FOOT,   Senator,  233,  242. 
FORCE  bill,  the,  316,  317,  339. 
FREE   Soil   party,   444. 


33 


513 


INDEX 


FRENCH     Decrees,     105,     106, 

US- 

FRENCH   Revolution,  the,  96. 
FRYEBURG,      Webster      teaches 

school  at,  74. 
FUGITIVE   Slave  law,  476,  452- 

454,  457,  492. 
FUNERAL    Oration,     Webster's, 

on  a  deceased  classmate,  54. 

GARRISON,  W.  L.,  39,  287. 
GIFTS,  4287435,   483,  484- 
GIRARD  Will  case,  421. 
GOODRICH,  Dr.,   154,  155. 
GOODRIDGE,   Major,    157,    158. 
GOODYEAR  rubber  case,  507. 
GORE,  Christopher,  78,  79,  140. 
GREEK  independence,   169-173. 

HARD     cider     campaign,     382- 

388. 
HARRISON,     General,     382-388, 

389- 
HARTFORD      Convention,      the, 

125,  126,  120-133. 
HAYNE,    Senator,   243-280. 
HISTORICAL    Society    of    New 

York,     the     address     before, 

506. 

HOAR,   Senator,  58,  420,  435. 
HOLMES,  John,  150,  278. 
HOLY   Alliance,   the,    170. 
HOPKINSON,  Joseph,   150,  217. 
HULSEMANN  Letter,  502,  503. 

ICHABOD,   486. 

IMMORALITY,  charges  of,  489. 
IMPRESSMENT,  408,  409. 
INGERSOLL    charges,     the    426. 

JACKSON,  General,  I95~i99, 
201,  229,  231,  232,  284-291, 
295,  340-345,  347,  350,  355, 
357-360,  372. 

JOHNSON,  Senator,  279. 

JULIAN,  G.  W.,  469. 

KENNISTON  trial,   157. 
KENT,   Chancellor,   156. 
KENYON,  John,  378. 
KING   Cotton,   455. 
KOSSUTH,  448-450. 


LANGUAGE,  Webster's  com 
mand  of,  56-60. 

LEE,  Mrs.   Buckminster,  84. 

LEOPARD,  frigate,  the,  107. 

LIBRARY,   Webster's,   415. 

LODGE,  Senator,  on  disunion, 
330. 

LOG  cabin,  Webster  not  born 
in,  24. 

LONGFELLOW,   H.   W.,   485. 

LOWELL,  J.  R.,  484. 

LYMAN,  Theodore,  227,  228. 

McLEOD,  390,  395,  396. 
MARSHFIELD,  190,  191,  294-307, 

415-420. 
MASON,   Jeremiah,   86,   87,   88, 

149. 

MASONS,  the.    See  Antimasons. 
MEXICAN   War,   the,   436,   439, 

44i. 

MINISTER  to  England,  Webster 
wishes  to  be,  374. 

MISSOURI  Compromise,  the, 
167,  168. 

MONICA,  303. 

MORNING,  Webster's  descrip 
tion  of,  418. 

MUTUAL  Admiration  Society, 
the,  73. 

NAPOLEON,    97-101,     106,     135, 

141,   171,   175- 
NATIONAL     Republicans,     the, 

283,  340. 
NEW  England,  18-21,  128,  133, 

238-242. 

NEW  Mexico,  450,  451. 
NON-INTERCOURSE  Act,  the,  no. 
NULLIFICATION,     309-315,    317- 

339- 

ORATORY,     spread-eagle     kind, 

54,  55- 

ORDERS  in  Council,  105,  106. 
OREGON  boundary,  425. 

PALMERSTON,  Lord,  397. 
PANIC  of  1837,  366,  367 
PARKER,  Theodore,  opinion  of 
Webster,  15,  428. 


INDEX 


PARTON,  his  opinion  of  Web 
ster,  16,  17. 

PATCHOGUE,  speech  at,  388. 

PEEL,  Sir  Robert,  377,  398. 

PET  banks,   343. 

PETERSON,  Seth,  302,  386,  387, 
419. 

PHI  BETA  KAPPA  address,  116- 
119. 

PLUMER,  William,  67,  121,  168 
169. 

PLYMOUTH    address,    160-163. 

POLITICAL  economy,  Webster's 
opinion  of,  179,  180. 

PORTSMOUTH,  life  at,  82-86,  89. 

PRESCOTT,   Judge,    163. 

PRESIDENCY,  nomination  for, 
283,  355,  357,  359,  446-448. 

PRESS  gang,  the,  104,  114-117. 

PROTEST,   Jackson's,   350-353. 

PUBLIC  lands,  233^237. 

RANDOLPH,   John,    139,    140. 

RAWLE,  on  the  Constitution, 
331- 

RELIGION,    Webster's,  422,  423. 

REMOVAL  from  office,  Presi 
dent's  power  of,  231,  232. 

REMOVAL  of  the  deposits,  341- 

„  343,  348,  349- 

REPEAL  of  the  Decrees,  in 
112. 

REPLY  to  Hayne,  246-280. 

ROCKINGHAM  Memorial,  the, 
121,  122. 

ROGERS,  N.  P.,  description  of 
Webster,  39. 

SANDWICH,  190. 
SARATOGA  speech,  384-387. 
SCOTT,  General,  504,  510. 
SCOTT,  Sir  Walter,  69,  417,  418. 
SEVENTH  of  March  speech  468 

477- 
SEWARD,    Governor,    471,    475 

476. 
SLAVERY,    161,    166,    167,    286, 

309-315,     361    436-439,     450, 

452-458,  459. 

SMITH,  Jeremiah,  149,  150,  151. 
SOUTH       CAROLINA       protests 

against  tariff  of  1828,  224. 


SPECTATOR,  the,  Webster  reads, 

43- 

SPRAGUE,  Senator,  278. 
SPREAD-EAGLE   oratory,    54,   55. 
STATE   banks,   the,   343*345- 
STORY,  Judge,  89-93,   154,   159, 

160,  211. 
SUB-TREASURY,     343,     368-370, 

385,  390- 
SUMNER,  Charles,  479,  485,  493, 

494- 


515 


TARIFF  of  1816,  143. 

of  1824,  173,  175-182. 

of   1828,   221-224,   308-315. 

TAYLOR,    President,    441,    443, 

477- 

TEXAS,   436-439,   475- 
THOMAS,   Ray,   382. 
THOMPSON,  T.  W.,  70. 
TICKNOR,  George,  74,  '75,   161, 

192, 193- 
TYLER,  President,  391,  411,  4121 

UNITED  STATES  BANK,  288- 
292,  341-343,  390,  413. 

VAN  BUREN,  Martin,  293,  355. 
VIRGINIA  and  KENTUCKY  Reso 
lutions,  268,  269. 

WAR  of  1812,  declaration  of, 
112,  113. 

WASHINGTON  Benevolent  As 
sociation,  119. 

WASHINGTON  Treaty  of  1842, 
393-410. 

WATTS,  Rev.  Dr.,  45. 

WEBSTER,  Daniel,  praised  and 
criticised,  15,  16;  drinking 
habits,  16;  compared  with 
great  orators,  18;  part  of 
literary  revival  of  New  Eng 
land,  18,  19 ;  ancestry,  21 ; 
birth,  22 ;  early  home,  23,  24 ; 
move  to  Merrimac  River,  28; 
keep  a  tavern,  29;  refine 
ment  of  family,  30 ;  delicate 
health,  30,  31,  32;  appear 
ance  of  his  mother,  30 ;  love 
of  play,  32;  love  of  nature, 
34;  first  schooling,  34;  vigor 


INDEX 


of  mature  life,  36;  height 
and  weight,  37;  favorite  cos 
tume,  39,  40 ;  advantages  _  at 
home,  41 ;  goes  to  Phillips 
Academy,  43;  teaches  school 
at  Searle  Hill,  46;  goes  to 
college,  47 ;  wide  reading, 
48;  character  in  college,  51, 
52 ;  Fourth  of  July  oration 
in  1800,  53;  methods  of 
studying  oratory,  56-60 ; 
position  as  an  orator,  60-69; 
studies  law,  70;  amusements, 
71,  72 ;  teaches  at  Fryeburg, 
74 ;  wide  reading,  76 ;  studies 
law  in  Boston,  78,  79;  trip  to 
Albany,  80 ;  refuses  clerk 
ship,  80,  81 ;  goes  to  live  in 
Portsmouth,  82 ;  marriage, 
85;  relations  with  Mason, 
86,  87,  88;  relations  with 
Judge  Story,  89-93;  first 
political  pamphlets,  95 ;  ac 
cepts  the  Federalist  view  oi 
Napoleon,  102 ;  argument 
against  the  embargo,  108; 
opposes  War  of  1812,  113; 
delivers  Phi  Beta  Kappa  ad 
dress,  116-119;  argument 
against  the  war,  119,  120; 
drafts  the  Rockingham 
Memorial,  121,  122;  goes  to 
Congress,  134;  arguments 
against  the  war,  I35~I37; 
challenges  40  duels,  139,  140; 
debate  on  the  tariff,  142; 
payment  of  government 
debts,  143 ;  moves  to  Boston, 
144;  death  of  his  daughter 
Grace,  144 ;  life  in  Boston, 
145 ;  Dartmouth  College 
case ;  146-157 ;  Kenniston 
trial,  157;  constitutional  con 
vention  of  Massachusetts, 
159;  Plymouth  address,  160- 
163  ;  La  Jeune  Eugenie,  163  ; 
trial  of  Judge  Prescott,  163 ; 
second  service  in  Con 
gress,  164;  head  of  the  ju 
diciary  committee,  166;  Mis 
souri  Compromise,  167,  168; 
Greek  independence,  169- 
173;  tariff  of  1824,  173,  175- 


182 ;  Gibbons  vs.  Ogden,  182- 
185 ;  Ogden  vs.  Saunders, 
185,  1 86;  field  sports,  187- 
190;  discovery  of  Marshfield, 
190,  191 ;  visit  to  Jefferson 
and  Madison,  191,  192;  death 
of  his  son,  193 ;  Crimes  Act, 
203 ;  associated  with  positive 
legislation,  204 ;  address  at 
Bunker  Hill,  209,  210;  visits 
Niagara,  211 ;  bill  to  reorgan 
ize  the  Supreme  Court,  213; 
Panama  mission,  214;  eulogy 
on  Adams  and  Jefferson, 
215-217;  elected  to  the  Sen 
ate,  219 ;  death  of  his  wife, 
220;  tariff  act  of  1828,  221- 
224;  libel  suit  against  Ly- 
man,  227,  228 ;  remarriage, 
230;  Great  Debate — Reply  to 
Hayne,  233-280;  White  mur 
der  trial,  281,  282;  urged  to 
become  candidate  for  Presi 
dency,  283 ;  Anti-masons, 
284-286 ;  United  States 
Bank,  288-292;  purchase  of 
Marshfield,  294-307 ;  nullifi 
cation,  309-339;  compromise 
of  1833,  336;  tour  of  the 
West,  340,  341 ;  removal  of 
the  deposits,  34i~343 ;  Jack 
son's  protest,  350-354:  the 
Presidency,  357 ;  wishes  to 
retire,  361,  362;  buying  west 
ern  land,  363-366;  western 
tour,  366 ;  panic  of  1837,  367 ; 
sub-treasury,  369 ;  debate  with 
Calhoun,  371-374;  goes  to 
England,  375-381 ;  hard  cider 
campaign,  382-388;  Saratoga 
speech,  384 ;  continues  in  Ty 
ler's  cabinet,  391,  392;  Ash- 
burton  Treaty,  393-410;  con 
tinued  refusal  to  resign  from 
Tyler's  cabinet,  411,  412;  re 
signs  from  cabinet,  414; 
debts,  414;  habits  of  life, 
415-420;  Girard  will  case, 
421 ;  religion,  422,  423 ;  Ore 
gon  boundary,  425 ;  Ingersoll 
charges,  426;  trust  fund  sub 
scribed,  427-428 ;  Parker 
charges,  428;  debts  and 


INDEX 


gifts,  427-435;  Visits  ^the 
South,  442 ;  declines  to  join 
Free  Soil  party,  444,  445 ; 
7th  of  March  speech,  468, 
477;  charges  of  immorality, 
489 ;  works  for  compromise 
of  1850,  491 ;  Secretary  of 
State,  495;  health  fails,  496; 
drunkenness,  charges  of, 
497~5oo ;  Goodyear  rubber 
case,  507 ;  thrown  from  car 
riage,  508;  last  illness  and 
death,  511,  512. 


WEBSTER,  Ebenezer,  22-29,  82. 
WEBSTER,    Ezekiel,    50,    51,    74, 

230. 

WEBSTER,  Fletcher,  487,  495. 
WHEELOCK,  Rev.  Dr.,   146. 
WHIGS,  283,  340. 
WHITE  murder  trial,  66,  67. 
WHITTIER,  470,   485-487. 
WILD-CAT  banks,   344. 
WILMOT  Proviso,  459,  473,  477. 
WIRT,  William,  150,   151. 
WISE,  Robert,  33. 
WRIGHT,  Porter,  302. 


i 


•"^^^^•^^^^•^M 

rr 


LOAN  DEPT 


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